Today, me and the Missus broke out the semi-portable game board we threw some new paint on the other night. Wanting her to have a better chance than normal, we decided to play an "unfair" game, with her using a full Schwere Panzerkompanie of 5 Tigers and supporting Grenadier platoon vs my US Tank Co. I've been putting together. I had a total of 13 shermans, and a full-strength Armored Rifle platoon in support aided by limited air support provided by P-38 Lightning aircraft.
I'll spare you the boring turn-by-turn wall of text (since I didn't take photos), but I'll make a few notes of some lessons I learned about fighting against Tigers while getting my posterior handed to me:
1. Focus fire. Sure, most weapons in MW cannot penetrate a Tiger's tough shell, but many of them can force the crew to bail out at least. The more dice you have those Schwere Panzers rolling, the more likely it will happen. Once it does...
2. Keep on the pressure. If you force a tank to bail twice in a row, you may scare the crew off, effectively getting a kill. Alternatively, if you can assault a bailed tank with infantry, you can capture the crew, again effectively killing the tank.
3. Attack from unexpected directions. Try to outmaneuver the slow Tigers with fancy footwork, and hit the weaker side armor to better your chances. Also, remember that the Top armor value of a tiger isn't all that much better than other tanks, so hit it with artillery bombardments or ground attack aircraft to take advantage of this.
4. Smoke 'em. Trust me, you do not want those Tigers getting full ROF with those 88's. Smoking them forces their owning player to make a choice- move and shoot at lower ROF, or take a penalty to the dice and stay put to fire full ROF.
5. Remember to play to the mission. 5 tigers are ridiculously tough, but they can't be everywhere at once. Use this to your advantage, and try to isolate the objectives so that you can handle them piecemeal. Having one tiger on an objective is a challenge, but having 5 on an objective is a lost cause. This may go with...
6. Utilize the terrain. Try to take shot from positions that give you cover or concealment (better yet, both!) to reduce the impact of return fire. Go Hull Down, shoot from the trees, whatever it takes to get that extra protection.
I made several glaring mistakes this game:
1. I forgot the 16" safe zone aircraft require to attack ground targets. A few times, I had Lightnings ready to go but forgot this rule.
2. Defender gets 2nd move in Breakthrough scenarios. I forgot this, and deployed my halftracks poorly.
3. I didn't use smoke enough. If I had, my armored Rifles assault may not have gotten MG'd to death, losing all my bazookas.
Well, feel free to discuss.
--FP135
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