Urban combat in Against The Tide

[spurious956]

Having a bit of trouble with the new expansion, mostly when it comes to defending Korotich.

Does anyone have any good advice on urban area defence?

This thing is on a whole other level from the usual villages, and unlike other large settlements I've fought through in prior graviteam games, this one seems impossible to prevent the attackers getting a foothold (my preferred urban combat tactic being to stop the other side getting in if possible) in so it's been a lot of difficult, high attrition combat. That first wave that hits with the T-34s in particular is kind of a nightmare due to how difficult it is to get any anti-tank going (I've seen infantry not even engaging when they're in spitting distance).

So what's worked for you in this scenario?

[Adler]

Have not played it or seen it yet. But what you want to do i think is to set up infantry in buildings and in trenchess in front of the city if possible. This way enemy will be stopped in front of the town, on open field where infantry from town will be able to shoot at them together with entrenched troops. If you can, aim mortarls in front of your trenches. It's good to have MGs on flanks, somewhere away from town so they can shoot from far away on enemy sides.

Let tanks drive into town and use AT nades if you have them. Tanks are weak without infantry in urban area. If you havve any AT guns, hide them between buildings so they can fire only when tanks get inside town, otherwise infantry or tanks will overhelm it with fire from range and kill it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRtwa9MNom0

[spurious956]

Video was helpful, thanks. One of the big problems though in this scenario is the lack of clear lines of sight out of the town, and there being a whole bunch of minefields along its edge along a railway that to the other side there's immediately orchards and woodland, so even when it is possible to deploy outside, it'd mean getting hit almost immediately and/or falling back through a minefield.
Problem is the Russians are already in position to rapidly move in both infantry and armour together, with cover and no good lines of sight or positions for mortars that I can find, so the fighting has to be done inside the town. The infantry also seemed reluctant to AT-grenade the tanks even whilst they were driving in spitting distance.

I'm wondering if it's worth turning it against them; simply abandoning the major objectives in the town temporarily in order to try and encircle via the more favourable (if still mobility limiting) terrain, counter-attacking on more favourable terms than the defence.
Might utterly kill any chance to win the battle though from holding objectives if it's not a fast and effective counter attack. Decisions, decisions...

[Ozark Rebel]

This part of the game kills me. Just picking out the spots to put my troops is the most agonizing aspect I struggle with. I am constantly second guessing myself. I'd give you some tips if I weren't so awful myself. If you need tips on how to lose graciously, let me know. I'm an expert there.

[Adler]

If it's full of mines, should not tanks and infantry get heavy losses by it?

[spurious956]

You'd think that but the best I've seen the mines do is de-track a couple of tanks. There's too many infantry for them to have much effect since once there's a breach in the minefield, that's it, they pile on through.

I have had some luck by getting over my fear of putting tanks in the town. I blame too many operations of using highly explode-y Pz.IIIs and IVs, lend-lease crud and rather easy to burn T-34s; watching a Panther's front armour bounce rounds from a T-34 at 50 meters (though the T-34s took some killing too due to glancing shots) illustrated to me they're a lot tougher than I thought.

I tried setting them slightly back from crossroads (obvious contention points for attackers), about 200-300 meters off the objective points so they won't catch too much pre-planned artillery, and flanked by infantry platoons. No more than two tanks per road. Mostly just one tank per major road into the town with a couple held back in reserve. Whilst am still not happy with how many casualties I've been taking (difficult to counter-attack to regain any lost territory), it seems to at least prevent a complete over-run and the Panthers have held up far better than AT guns in the same role. If the AT guns didn't quickly take out the T-34s, they just got splatted by HE and machinegun fire, and as a bonus had trouble with lines of sight due to being low to the ground and those roads being pretty lumpy.

[Headshotkill]

The ring of minefields along the rail forms a protective shield against tanks so you don't have to deploy that many AT-guns facing that way. Weakest spots are the flanks, focus AT here at choke points or at positions where they have an overview of the area outside the town.

I found out trenches are still very valuable even inside dense urban area's, they give better protection from artillery and usually cover streets more effectively.
It's best the pretty much ignore what enviroment you're in and just make defensive lines as usuall, this way you can be sure the enemy will run into resistance should they enter.