Question: effectiveness of infantry vs armor in wooded area?

[Warsaw Bill]

Hello all,

Playing Poland, June 2020, Russia advances Poland delays. Map was heavily forested so I just put a ton of AT infantry everywhere (and an equal amount of artillery).

T72's and T90's didn't even blink. Of course they were buttoned, but I had an assumption infantry vs armor in forested areas would be more effective. I got the Russian scouts, and some of their troop transports, but overall I got rolled over (it does feel like that might be a fairly accurate outcome of this situation).

To what extent does terrain influence infantry effectiveness over armor?

Thank you in advance,

Bill

[Aeraaa]

There isn't any magical effect infantry has in the game (or IRL for that matter). Infantry's toughness comes from being hard to spot and forest enhances that trait. Simply put, it is quite often the case that an infantry squad ambushes a tank, fires off 2-3 AT munitions and is not even spotted. Bear in mind though, that in 2020, vehicles have better optics (many times even thermals) which mean they are better equipped to spot grunts.

Apart from that, most tanks in 2020 are practically immune from the front from any infantry carried AT weapon. That means you have to be sure you hit the flanks or even better, the rear of the vehicle. A good trick is to put at least two squads on opposite sides of a road (if the forest has a road running through it, which is where usually the tanks advance). When one tank passes, one squad hits it from the side. Tank will reply either by turning its turret or sometimes by turning the entire hull. Then you can use the other squad on the other side of the road to hit it from a more advantageous position (again, sides or rear, don't try the same thing to the front).

Most of time you need to have numbers (i.e. more rifle squads than enemy tanks) so that at least one squad will be in a position to fire a good shot. That is not a problem though, since tanks are much more expensive than infantry squads (by a factor of around 10-15 or so in 2020).

[Suhiir]

Some time back I played someone's Norway VS Russia scenario where Russian active defense measures made Norwegian ATGMs all but useless. HOWEVER, in WinSPMBT active measures have limited charges (usually 1 or 2) so all you need to do is have more ATGMs then they have charges concentrate on the same target. Then fall back, resupply (i.e. ammo vehicles in the hands of players become even more invaluable), and do it again. You can win, it just takes a while.

[Imp]

As stated terrain does not provide any attack benefits however it does allow you to get close for an accurate shot or assault.
Woods are therefore good terrain for infantry to take on vehicles but there are a few key factors to success.

1) They need to swarm & this is made a lot more difficult since the change a few patches back that infantry need MP to assault.
2) While hand grenades can get the job done having a decent AT weapon makes success far more likely.
3) A suppressed vehicle is in trouble your goal should be to heavily suppress them as destroying becomes far easier or they may even abandon the vehicle. Hence the importance of point (1)
4) Suppression is detrimental to your units trying to deliver the kill shots, keep that in mind when rallying units they are the priority.

How to pull it off, quite a bit to try & achieve.
Attack it as many times as possible to cause suppression using the following guidelines & if possible hitting with artillery beforehand to suppress them.
1) If your AT weapons can destroy it from a side or rear facing try & position yourself so you can get a shot at it by switching firers & making the vehicle rotate.
2) Otherwise just fire to suppress initially your not hoping for a kill.
Keep hitting it then assault once suppressed so no shots & easier.
3) If you cannot kill it but get to retreat status cover its exit route (not easy)
It may bail out if not it will be attacked as tries to retreat.
4) This is one of those cases where staying put for accuracy goes out of the window after the initial attack swarm with everything you can.

So pulling it off
If adjacent look at your forces & plan your attack - keep in mind MP needed to assault & its suppress then kill. Also if an assault fails that's probably all that unit can do that turn.
Therefore use the W key to attack from adjacent & cause suppression, first squad is likely going to get punished & take fire but if it survives in good order can now possibly assault or often better to keep attacking with W let a fresh squad go for the kill.
Hard part is judging when to stop W attacks & go for the assault kill - tank main guns can cause suppression in multiple hexes making life difficult so try & keep that in mind & the fire away from your kill squads when attacking.

Make no mistake its a challenge now you have to reserve MP to assault but the odds are in the infantries favour entering woods infested with them is dangerous. Modern ERA in particular a tank can cost as much as a company of infantry.
So say 5 squads a tank if you can get position that's 2 dead tanks for say 10-12 men.

Note - Engineers equipped with high warhead weapons like flamethrowers demo charges need special care.
Not the best weapons to destroy a tank with but good at causing suppression possibly to multiple units - that means they can also suppress or kill your own units. This means they can actually do more harm than good in your main line.
If you have good intel they are good units to move in to block the vehicles retreat if you can pull it off.
High accuracy weapons so chance of hitting even if they have moved plus an attack in the hex still causes suppression (routing tank now in a flame hex).
Hopefully they are now in a position to suppress the next wave letting your front line shake off their suppression & regroup.
Flame weapons in particular including teams are very effective for giving you a breather if you manage to set a few strategic hexes on fire as they cause suppression.

[sigeena]

Fire overrides the armour rating, no? It's a very handy tank killer, and the smoke helps in further masking terrain to pull back any exposed units.

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by sigeena

Fire overrides the armour rating, no? It's a very handy tank killer, and the smoke helps in further masking terrain to pull back any exposed units.

Fire has its own penetration mechanism, which can bypass any thickness of armour. It's why flamethrowers and molotovs got a big hike in points cost when we introduced te cost calculator.

[Imp]

My view using fire weapons in this type of situation is a double edged sword you can easily shoot yourself in the foot.

You can get lucky & have them punch above their weight & kill anything but best used as suppression which they are good at.
As said care needs to be taken with which hexes are set alight.
Great if the tank moves into a fire hex & is attacked but bad if you have to enter the fire hex to attack it.
You can strategically try to place fire hexes by Z firing with them its helped me a few times.