CC3 Strategy and Analysis
by Pz_Smokestak

 

Tactics and all that good stuff

OK, I know a lot of this is stuff that most of us already know, and I am by no means a great player, but you can’t stress enough the fundamentals of basic tactics in CC3.

1st off-Your mission will be dictated by the task you are assigned, i.e. attack, defend, or seize and hold VL’s. Therefore, your force mix must complement your mission. For offensive missions, you want a good mix of firepower and mobility. If your mission is defensive in nature, mobility is not as important, being secondary to firepower. Some battles employ a combination of attack and defense, such as where you have to seize a certain objective and then hold it.Your force mix and tactical options will largely be dictated by the terrain. Therefore, make sure you get a good look at the map you are fighting on and take care with deployment.

The Attack:

Frontal Assault - Mean, nasty, bloody, NEVER pretty, but it decides things really fast. Only do this if you are unable to carry out any of the other types of attack (example: you have to cross a river and there is only 1 bridge or something like that) or if you simply have an overwhelming advantage in firepower.

Penetration - Sort of like a frontal assault but uses a heavily concentrated force in a small area of the enemy line to affect a breakthrough to the rear of the enemy positions.

Flank attack - While holding the enemy’s attention with a diversionary frontal assault, attack from the side with your main force, preferably mobile and with heavy firepower (i.e. tanks or heavy infantry). Make sure however, that you sneak your flanking force into position unobserved, and have it in place well before starting your diversionary frontal assault, otherwise this force may be wiped out entirely while your flanking units are still getting into position.

Double Envelopment - Variation on a theme of the flank attack, but this time you attack from both flanks at once. This is one of those “nice in theory but usually doesen’t work in real life” scenarios, but if you can pull it off, you will kick some serious butt.

Infiltration - Sneaking teams along the edge of the map or through gaps in the enemy defense, into his rear. Unfortunately, you can’t do this with tanks. It’s kind of hard sneak around in a 60-ton Tiger, though, isn’t it? Sneak in the infantry and move your other units in to link up with them.

Since armor figures prominently in this game, on the attack, you want mobile units which have a lot of firepower. I generally prefer tanks for offense as opposed to TD’s because of the turret bonus, which helps when you get in knife-fight range (though if you get that close with tanks, you’ve got problems anyway). So go for tanks, recon teams/scout cars, mortars (for smoke especially) that sort of thing. That fixed 88 mm AA gun may chew up KV’s all day, but if all the fighting has moved too far forward or out of LOS, that 88 can’t go anywhere useful and ends up as interesting lawn ornament. Light and heavy infantry also are (of course) must-haves, and buying another command team (esp a command vehicle) is a wise investment to keep the cohesion of your advance and your morale up when you run into those pesky dug in AT guns and other nice surprises.Move up your scouts first, from cover to cover, then your infantry, then, once you get a good idea of what you’re up against, your armor.

For infantry assaults, don’t forget to use smoke for cover and to confuse the enemy as to the direction of your attack. Sometimes, you have a really bad hair day and your scout car/light tank gets annihilated by an 88 or something. AT guns can really mess up your day, I like to withdraw my infantry/armor in danger and call in the mortar rounds. If your lucky, this will take out the gun entirely or at least kill some of the crew, plus suppressing it. Usually AT guns are in good positions and supported by MG teams or some other type of infantry, so charging the guns with your grunts can be costly. A good idea is to drop smoke around the gun and then attack, or open up with any available MG’s you have. Bazooka type guys can kill AT guns too, but I generally like to save these and the flamer guys for enemy tanks.Of course, if you’re GI’s have to cross 100 meters of open field to get to the pestiferous enemy position, bringing in your armor is a viable option. Generally, it’s best to distract them with infantry/MG’s and advance with 2 or more tanks, spaced to the left and right, so he has to engage each separately and take time deciding which to attack first, plus, even if he does kill one of your tanks, your other one may drop some HE on him when he is still swinging his barrel around. If you’re really lucky, he may go right ahead and open up on your infantry and have to shoot at your tank with an HE round.

So what about relatively immobile, yet useful support weapons like HMG’s and stuff? Well, on the attack, place them where they have a good area of fire so they can be used for suppression, or to stop a counterattack. Defense: Essentially there are 2 types of defense, static, and mobile. Once again, which one you use will depend on terrain and your force mix. Defense is generally easier than attack…notice I said “generally” LOL…You get to pick the best spots in the best terrain, your mutually supporting fields of fire are already set up, and the other guy has to come to you and might blunder into a rather heavily defended spot. Static defense is, well, static. I.E. you pick your places to defend, and you stay there. A mobile defense is more flexible, where you have several alternate positions which you can fall back to if need be, and more mobile units employed make counterattacks more viable. My favorite defensive tactics revolve around reverse slope deployment, pioneered by Wellington during the wars with Napoleon. The first of these involves putting AT guns on the backside of hills covering likely approaches, with LOS perpendicular to the enemy line of advance, which usually means your guns get those all-important flank shots. If you stick it on the top of a hill you may find that it everyone can see you and it’s raining 120mm mortar shells. The second, probably my all time favorite, involves deploying my armor behind a hill, in the rear, keeping it out of sight as a very powerful mobile reserve, ready to meet any threat and get there in a hurry. In general, wether on attack or defense, you want to wait to commit your more expensive/dangerous units last, waiting until you know what of the enemy units presents the biggest threat. Another good way to “hide” your tanks is to place them behind buildings. Infantry in buildings I often put nearest the wall facing my own positions, which makes them harder to see. When you see the enemy coming, move them to the other end of the building and open fire.

Other things CC3:

German Mortar halftracks: A mortar team you can move AND you get extra rounds too.

Rocket halftracks: Pack a real punch, these guys can kill heavy tanks and wipe out entire enemy squads.

German late-war infantry: There’s nothing more satisfying than imagining the look on your opponent’s face when one of your cheap light infantry squads takes out a JS tank with a panzerfaust.

T-34 Flame tank: Flamethrowers are just all kinds of fun, aren’t they?

T-34: These guys eat Pz III’s and IV’s as well as German infantry for breakfast.

Panther/Tiger/King Tiger: These guys eat T-34’s for breakfast. And everything else on the battlefield too.

88 mm guns: Once, a single 88 of mine took out 4 enemy tanks and 3 infantry squads. Expensive but pays for itself. On the downside, if it gets taken out I have been known to be prone to extensive fits of loud cursing LOL.

The MG42: Quite possibly the best infantry killer on the battlefield.

Well, that’s all for my humble little column here, maybe I will be back to write more soon…

Pz _Smokstak

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