German Armor vs. French Armor 5/40 issue

[SGTGunn]

Hi,

I'm playing a long campaign as the Germans, and I'm fighting my first battle against the French - an Advance mission - and I'm a bit disgusted at my tanks seemingly utter inability to defeat the armor of their French counterparts. One particularly galling example follows. A lone French H-39/SA18, buttoned and suppressed by artillery is attacked by 10 PzKw IIIe, 3 PzKw IVc, and 1 PzKw IId. The majority of the German panzers are Veteran experience level. After two turns of firing a maneuvering, and achieving about 12 ineffectual hits on the H-39, the German Tanks close to point blank range and surround the H-39 from 4 sides. They open fire at between 50-100m and achieve over a dozen hits with 37mm, 75mm and 20mm - including several "extra penetration" hits. The H-39 is unscathed!!! It's not like this is a Char B1 or S-35. I realize that the French tanks were well armored and that the German's 37mm and short 75mm were hardly stellar anti-armor performers, but this seems a bit ridiculous. I feel like I'm shooting a Jagdtigers with 75mm armed Shermans.

Almost all of the tank kills I've managed against the French have been either close assaults with infantry and pioneers, or I just shelled a tank with heavy artillery until it blew up of the crew bailed out an ran away. I've killed a total of 2 French tanks with my panzers - and one kill on an S-35 required several point blank shots in the rear with a short 75mm at 50m. I'm beginning to wonder how the French lost.

Adrian

[junk2drive]

Poor leadership.

[chuckfourth]

Hello Adrian
The French lost because their staff calculated (im working from memory here) 2 weeks for the germans to get sufficient strength through the Ardenne to pose a serious threat and deployed accordingly. The Germans managed to navigate the forest in less than half the time, arrived in numbers, broke through the front and the rest was history, ie the French tanks wernt where they needed to be.
Best Chuck.

[SGTGunn]

*lol* well, the question about how the French lost was a rhetorical one ^_~ - I was just disgusted with the performance of my panzers. Does anyone know of a good book or site with some anecdotes of French-German tank combat? I'd like to read about what ranges the German 37mm gun had success knocking out French tanks.

Adrian

P.S. I did still win a decisive victory, but no thanks to the panzertruppen. I'm going to have to buy some 88's before I run into the BEF Matilda II's.

[junk2drive]

For a French view go to the Axis History Forum and look up the posts by David Lehmann. Generally in the WW2 in Western Europe section.

http://forum.axishistory.com/index.php

[Mobhack]

SGTGunn said:
*lol* well, the question about how the French lost was a rhetorical one ^_~ - I was just disgusted with the performance of my panzers. Does anyone know of a good book or site with some anecdotes of French-German tank combat? I'd like to read about what ranges the German 37mm gun had success knocking out French tanks.

Adrian

P.S. I did still win a decisive victory, but no thanks to the panzertruppen. I'm going to have to buy some 88's before I run into the BEF Matilda II's.

the German 37mm will go through class 4 armour at 0 degrees at 250-450 metres. Class 5 under that. So - you need nil-deflection shots in close at 5 hexes or so or less, generally, and preferably in the side or up its kilt.

However - if the AP=the calculated pen, then the over penetration rules apply (there is none! ) so the shot may not penetrate. Therefore - you want some critical hits (accuracy of 80% or better from under 500m or so).

Best to make sure the little beastie is completely suppressed, or in rout before trying. (i.e. drop HE on it).

The original SP1 had German tanks with sabot for the 37mm in France 40 - research showed this did not arrive till later.

Your other bet is to but the Jagdpanzer 1, which has a rather hot Czechoslovakian 47mm gun. It is class 8 till 200m, and class 7 till 400 (ignoring any WH additions etc.)

Buy a few of those, and shoot from 350m or so, should do the business on most French armour.

Otherwise - remember that the German early war doctrine was that the ATG took on the enemy tanks. Tanks were to operate in the enemy operational depth and deal with arty batteries, refuelling depots etc and not get into slugging matches with armour, so they would often if they met same retire back through an ATG line, as done in the desert etc. Any enemy tanks that followed the fake retiral were dealt with buy the Pak-Front.

So - trundling some towed 88s as "sniper" pieces is a valid historical tactic.

Cheers
Andy

[SGTGunn]

Andy,

Thanks for the info. I've picked up some '88s for my next battle, so hopefully that will event things up a bit.

Adrian

[evan]

Ah but watch out for the AI's over the top responce to the 88mm's; 8 artillery pieces and four aircraft coming after a pair of 88's struck me as; well a little enthusiastic to say the least. Anybody else noted this?

[hveldenz]

Take care of your 88's. I now move them most times after one turn of firing - they can't kill much with all the moving, but I get them out of the way before the artillery comes. Thankfully, the AI does not have 1.0 turn reaction times!