"For those that complain about the invulnerable Tiger..." Topic

Playing early war scenarios against Matildas is no picnic! I spent 3-4 turns peppering them with my Panzer IIIs to no visible effect. Their 2 pounder were slightly more effective than my 37mm, since I lost 3-5 Panzers. I was just hoping to stun the crew, or disable something. Sadly, that was not to be.

And last night I played a 1941 russian scenario. I had several Panzer IIIL and even a couple of 10.5 cm K (gp.Sfl.)"Dicke Max". I made short work of the T-34s, but the pair of KV-1s were impervious to the 50mm guns , and even shrugged direct hits from the 105mm guns.
One KV-1 succumbed to an infantry assault while it was buttoned up engaging the tanks, the other was killed by a rear shot from a Panzer III at very close range. That was very close!

And I am not even going to describe how tough the bloody Char Bs are…

Gotta Love Early War.

And the tanks are way cooler.

It does make you wonder how the Germans did so well early in WW2. Perhaps they were using different rules;-)

They cheated!

Try Char B's

Morale roll failures by their opponents.

Stukas.

Which rules were used?

It is always more satisfying to take down the big, invunerable tanks with infantry close assaults. The looks on players' faces when they roll them forward without support into the infantry and get killed is priceless!

Gosh I love the EW period too… Matlidas won a game for the Brits vs SS a few weeks ago. Once the Whermacht 88s were knocked out the SS (FT) had nothing to stop them from gaining a Victory for King and Country!

SFC Retired

The 10.5 cm K18 should make short work of the KV if it had any AP.

It does make you wonder how the Germans did so well early in WW2. Perhaps they were using different rules;-)

The Germans definitely play Spearhead

It was Steel Panthers: World at War. It is a PC game but I have succesfully translated several scenarios to miniatures games.

Yep – early war is fun to play and makes it very hard to win if the Germans actually have to run the stuff they had historically against the enemy. Even in FoW, the early war stuff makes it very difficult for the Germans to pull out an out and out victory – the battles are unusually hard fought on both sides with many casualties and the end comes when one side fails a morale check at the company level from loss of platoons rather than victory conditions. Sounds like you had a fun game though!

"The Germans definitely play Spearhead"

I have seen plenty of SH games where a horde of T26s hide behind one KV-1 while the Germans wail in frustration as the target priority rules force them to fire ineffectively at the KV. Didn't seem to occur to them to go around the side…

Anyway, as we all probably know, the solution to Allied heavy tanks wasn't to engage them with inferior German ones but to go around them and leave them to the Stukas/div artillery firing over open sights, maybe even the odd 88 or blokes with satchel charges. Even better, overrun their supply/fuel columns/HQs. Or scare them away with flare pistols.

Historically, it seems that the side with the better tanks always loose :-)

Luckily for the Germans the Russians didn't organize very good counter-attacks using KVs and T-34s in 1941. They did manage to put in a pretty good showing in the fighting for Mcensk. There masses of T-34s and KVs ambushed and turned back the Germans for a few days. I made a few scenarios for the computer game Panzer Command of these battles. The Germans were saved by retreating back to some 88mm Flak and the 10.5 cm K18 guns. But they lost some of these too.

One thing that helped the Germans in the early war was the Soviets were poorly trained and they did not maintain their guns. Often they weren't zeroed before use.

There is a KV-1 at the tank museum at Aberdeen, MD. The immediately amazing feature is the width of the track. The T-34 track is also very wide. If you squat in front of the KV-1 the track width will cause your jaw to drop the rest of the way to the ground. You begin to think, I would never want to be this close to this thing from the front aspect in 1941. gulp.

A good way to handle the heavy tanks is not to engage them. Bypass their positions, encircle, force them to withdraw, and watch them run out of gas.

The Soviets lost all but a handful of their T-35s to running out of fuel or to mechanical breakdown.

If you have to fight the heavies, broken tracks are pretty effective. You can usually hit the tracks from the front. From the side you can do a lot with HE.

"Historically, it seems that the side with the better tanks always loose :-)"

Yes, which goes to show there must be more to it than better tanks.

Pakfront anyone?

"There is a KV-1 at the tank museum at Aberdeen"

The Germans seemed to regard the KV with particular (at least early in the war). I just love the scene at the end of the big tank attack in 'Men Against Tanks' where the KV blows up and all the German infantry cheer. What a waste of a perfectly good KV!

Shame it was slow, unreliable and too heavy for many bridges (sound familiar?).

LOL I finally got around to odering some KV-1s,T-35s and Matilda I from PicoArmor yesterday before I saw this thread. I too love the Early War encounters :). Robert

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There were many reasons the germans won in 1940. For one Their tanks were used in concentrated battle groups, where as the allies spread their AFVs around in small groups spead accross the entire front. The Germans usualy had numerical supremacy when tanks colided. Another reason was the fuel. The french couldn't fill up at the petrol pumps like the germans could. Many allied tanks were abandoned for lack of fuel. The french re supply system was abysmal as was their command and contol.

But when the allies got it right and used their tanks en mass they did perform very well.

Prolific use of radios surely had something to do with German success. Just about every panzer had a radio. Most French and Russian tanks did not. Try playing a game in which you as the overall commander cannot give orders directly to most of your tanks.

Also, in Pz IIIs and Pz IVs the tank commander had no other duties. In T-34s the tank commander was also the gunner. In Somuas the tank commander was also the gunner AND the loader!

I prefer the early war. You get KV1's and T26 on the same table :)

Historically, it seems that the side with the better tanks always loose :-)

Japan? Italy? WW1 Germany? Iraq? Falklands? Malaya? Yugoslavia?

A more accurate quip might be "the side with the better tanks sometimes loses".
-Kle.

"For one Their tanks were used in concentrated battle groups,"

Neither this nor the povision of radios actually helps if your tank guns can't penetrate the enemy tanks armour from any angle.

Every tank has a vulnerable spot somewhere: a vision port, where the hull MG or coaxial MG sticks thru the armor, air intakes for the engine, tracks, suspension, etc. et al. Or, most simple, an open hatch.

I read Yank articles that had the "Soviet Translation" of Tiger vulnerability. They mention these slits. The thing is the idea a 76 mmm AP is going to go clean through that tiny little hole is pretty slim. It would be a super human feat of marksmanship and luck to be in a position to get a head on shot at on of those. The article and manuals with the simailr ones sugest pouring fire at the tiger to achieve such a thing. With the constant calls for simplicity getting into not only facing but exact location would be a chore. But Im sure many rules allow for some good roll of a dice to "abstract" this into the "I got around 4 inches of armor" roll. These vulnerabilities would be realistically portrayed if restricted to Close assaults.

Early war has no bearing on this subject.

I read Yank articles that had the "Soviet Translation" of Tiger vulnerability. They mention these slits. The thing is the idea a 76 mmm AP is going to go clean through that tiny little hole is pretty slim. It would be a super human feat of marksmanship and luck to be in a position to get a head on shot at on of those. The article and manuals with the simailr ones sugest pouring fire at the tiger to achieve such a thing. With the constant calls for simplicity getting into not only facing but exact location would be a chore. But Im sure many rules allow for some good roll of a dice to "abstract" this into the "I got around 4 inches of armor" roll. These vulnerabilities would be realistically portrayed if restricted to Close assaults.

never mind the above. Sorry about the cut and paste. Yes tell all your typo police friends i blew a post in two separate ways. well three actually.

Yes the better tanks aren't all there is to it. Combined arms is needed. Thats why when people complain about the Tigers they should check there scenario for proper artillery support and Air suport, and superior numbers in AFVS and infantry over the Germans. Then a Tiger is not a insurmountable force.

How about Matildas?

- Bob

The only solution to both Matilda I & II in France was large calibre guns firing over open sights (divisional artilly and AA), tanks and Pak 36 were useless against them.

In the desert tanks remained useless against them in 1941 at least, one of Rommels tank battalion commanders was court martialled for refusing to engage Matilda IIs. There were three solutions:

a) large calibre guns firing direct as above, ideally dug in and covered by minefields as at Halfaya.
b) retreat until the Matildas wore out (they had a very short range and limited track life which was why they spent most of their time on tank transporters).
c) destroy their maintenanace/fuel facilities by air attack and/or mechanised advance.

I would suggest that games which pit 1940 era German tanks in a head-head fight with Matilda IIs are going to be even more unbalanced as games than Tiger IIs vs Shermans, given the absence of effective infantry AT weapons in 1940/41.

I think I remember reading there were only about 17 Matilda IIs in France in 1940. The much more numerous Matilda 1s were only machine gun armed which could have made for some weird encounters with panzers that couldn't hurt them or be hurt by them.

When you look at a Matilda I's tracks you have to think that any close HE hit will be enough to immobilise it at least. A thoroughly odd tank design, even by inter-war standards.

fred12df wrote:

When you look at a Matilda I's tracks you have to think that any close HE hit will be enough to immobilise it at least. A thoroughly odd tank design, even by inter-war standards.

But cheap, which is what H M Treasury cared about.

All the best,

John.