In this post I'm going to talk briefly about 3 battles I had recently. From the title you can probably guess how they went.
Note: I will be adding some diagrams to this shortly to make it easier to follow.
Predictably their guys in town swept through our remaining heavies in town and we were on the back foot 5-11 quite quickly. By this point I had decided to try and flank up the 5 line hugging the wall. I killed a medium in the field, but found myself in a bad spot as there was a Lago camped at D6, a TD behind the pillbox at C2 and just then a KV-1 came out of the town behind me at E5. I did some damage to the TD, but the KV-1 killed me pretty fast.
Note: I will be adding some diagrams to this shortly to make it easier to follow.
The Good
Starting off with the good. I was playing my T-21 light in a standard battle on the Erlenberg map. I spawned in the North and decided to go west to scout the western river road, the G7 hill and the fortress area. I pulled up into the woods in C2 and waited for a few moments. Just as I spotted two enemy heavies pulling into the fortress through G2, two of our heavies arrived on my hill and moved in to engage.
As the low-tier LT I knew there wasn't much point in trying to trade shots with their heavies face to face but I also wanted to see what I could do to help our heavies win that engagement. So...I took a chance and headed east across the two line to the low road along the east side of the fortress. I knew that if there were any enemies in the town below, or lurking behind the fortress in H2, they'd spot me and I'd probably have to abort...but I made it all the way to G2 without being spotted. I swung up through the same entrance their heavies took and found myself in perfect position behind them.
My first shot killed the heavy on the right. My second shot did heavy damage to the already wounded heavy on the left and our heavies focused fire and killed him. At that point our team to the East was winning and our TDs along the 1 line had killed two enemies that showed up down there after all. We pushed down the two line and flanked back into their base for the mop up operation.
The flanking move against superior tanks was a bit of a YOLO but I figured that they would be preoccupied trying to trade shots with our heavies and even if they spotted me would be foolish to turn their turret to deal with a little LT while our HTs were shooting them from the front. It worked out.
Lesson: That LT doesn't have lots of armor or a heavy gun, but it does have agility and can be very useful, even deal good damage, if I pick my spots to flank and help my teammates. Sitting in the bush watching them trade with the heavies, or bouncing tiny rounds off their front armor, would have been useless.
The Bad
I took my T-67 into a standard battle in Sacred Valley yesterday. We spawned in the south and I immediately joined the group heading north-west up the 2 line. I took a pretty good path in cover with the intention of lending supporting fire when we encountered red tanks. Sure enough when I got up around F2 we encountered some enemies poking out around E3. A couple of well-placed shots and I had a kill on a medium.
Feeling a bit TOO confident I pulled forward just as another red tank poked out around the one I'd just killed. Focused on taking a shot at him I failed to remember that in pulling forward I'd left cover and exposed my left side to any enemies in D2. I also didn't pay enough attention to the enemy Hellcat sitting above my intended target in the E4 area. Sure enough I got one shot on the tank in front of me, but took damage from a medium on my left and got killed by the Hellcat TD on the hill.
Lesson: I should have been more patient and stayed in cover. Also I should have realized that the Hellcat was the bigger threat to me and focused on him first.
The Ugly
I took the T-67 out on the Siegfried Line for a standard battle this morning. At the start we had four heavies to their two and the MM looked favorable. We spawned in the south and I moved up to take a position behind the pillbox at G6. It's a decent starting spot that lets me see the field and also lend some supporting fire up the 6 line edge of town.
My first shots were bad choices - there was a P1-C running around the field, and I took a couple of shots at him from distance. But he was scampering around and at that range my odds of hitting him were slim. Should have left those in the gun and been more patient.
Our LTs were doing a good job of spotting the field and they ended up killing that P1-C eventually. Just as they did though, and much to my amazement, one of our heavies trundled past me out into the field! "WTF is he going?" I said out loud. About 3 seconds later he was dead - killed by a snipe shot in the open ground. Just then I noticed that ANOTHER of our heavies was moving through the field up the 3 line. Moments later he too was burning in the open field.
Predictably their guys in town swept through our remaining heavies in town and we were on the back foot 5-11 quite quickly. By this point I had decided to try and flank up the 5 line hugging the wall. I killed a medium in the field, but found myself in a bad spot as there was a Lago camped at D6, a TD behind the pillbox at C2 and just then a KV-1 came out of the town behind me at E5. I did some damage to the TD, but the KV-1 killed me pretty fast.
Lesson: I should have watched the minimap more closely. I'd have noticed sooner that our guys in town needed help and that two of our heavies were inexplicably heading for the field. I probably couldn't have stopped those heavies from being stupid and getting killed in the grass, but I might have done a better job of pulling back east along the G line to see if I could help our guys in town instead of paying so much attention to the field. We still might have lost, but I might have been more useful.
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