German infantry in close combat

[J.J]

I have 800+ hours in the game and needless to say I’m enjoying it. However, I have always felt that german infantry does not do very well in close combat. I mean they are doing very well on long range battle, but when Russians come close enough to throw some grenades and enter the trenches my infantry becomes weak. It seems germans do not have many grenades and seem quite passive overall in close combat. Is this intentional? Or is it that the attacker has advantage in close combat generally? I have only played as germans thought.

[andrey12345 v2.0]

Historically, on the Eastern Front heavy infantry fought against light infantry+tanks (there were a lot of objective reasons for this, both economic and military). This apparently left its mark on the weapons systems.

Usually, the German infantry has enough anti-tank equipment (guns/spgs etc) prevent to close combat with tanks. And enough heavy weapons to cut off enemy infantry from tanks and they ceased to be extremely dangerous.
But with the Soviet infantry everything is much worse - the anti-tank defense in the rifle units is extremely weak, a lot of palliative weapons are required to somehow counteract the enemy armored vehicles.

Those. we get on the one hand:
Infantry with lot of mortars and HMGs, ATGs from inf regiment, ATGs from division, heavy ATGs from artillery regiment and attached SPGs.

And on the other hand:
infantry with mortars and some MGs and light ATGs + tanks (+ possibly attached medium ATGs if the infantry attacks at important direction)

The second case clearly requires a "lift" of the AT level with at least something, for example, grenades and AT rifles.

It is clear that this does not always work, there are operations in the game where the German system is in a "broken" state and then the infantry hits the main blow.

[J.J]

Ok, so you mean that russians just had more exposives and heavy weapons in an infantry squad level to compensate their lack of heavy guns and other heavy weaponry on the higher level (regimental etc)?

[Ts4EVER]

Dunno about that, but the Russians certainly have more and better smgs and (in the early operations) automatic rifles than the Germans.

[A God Machine]

Well the truth is if your trenches are getting overwhelmed then you probably lost anyway, PPD-40 or no PPD-40, you are going to get wiped. You also have to factor in morale and experience, close combat is messy and can go either way.

[Waterdotz]

Usually when trenches are getting overrun the defenders are getting suppressed. I attacked a soviet trench line and I saw a panzergrenadier kick 4 soviets to death. But as a general rule the Germans are kinda weak in close combat, they're much better at medium to long range where their machine guns can be taken full advantage of

[Ts4EVER]

Originally posted by JESUS IS LORD:

Well the truth is if your trenches are getting overwhelmed then you probably lost anyway, PPD-40 or no PPD-40, you are going to get wiped. You also have to factor in morale and experience, close combat is messy and can go either way.

Yeah true, I was actually thinking more in terms of forest and village fighting. For trenches the support weapons count a lot more.

[Waterdotz]

The German infantry squad was built around the machine gun which makes them really good at medium to long range but lacking at closer ranges. This makes forest fighting kinda frustrating and urban fighting difficult without heavy armor and artillery support. My infantry got wrecked in the black forest dlc

[andrey12345 v2.0]

Originally posted by J.J:

Ok, so you mean that russians just had more exposives and heavy weapons in an infantry squad level to compensate their lack of heavy guns and other heavy weaponry on the higher level (regimental etc)?

In the summer battles of 1941, the Red army lost a large amount of artillery, so at least some compensation for this was required. Here ATRs, AT grenades, bottles and other strange tools were used. This is not a sign of good, it is a sign of problems with AT defense. In the normal case, AT guns or tanks are used as AT defense.

[andrey12345 v2.0]

Originally posted by Waterdotz:

The German infantry squad was built around the machine gun which makes them really good at medium to long range but lacking at closer ranges. This makes forest fighting kinda frustrating and urban fighting difficult without heavy armor and artillery support. My infantry got wrecked in the black forest dlc

In the Red Army, in the same way, a squad was built around a machine gun. But the problem was that the Red Army did not have a good machine gun, either light or heavy, by the standards of the WW2. Plus there were general problems with the production of machine guns since the beginning of the war. But there were good automatic rifles and SMGs. They tried to compensate for the lack of machine guns.

[=J13=Serenity]

Good points
I also read (from Alexey Isaev) that ATR, although net very effective against tanks, greatly limited german usage of light armor (armored cars). And that Soviet army used T34 as a universal tool for everything, attack, defense, AT defense etc... Same for Su 76.
The way he described soviet strategy - Counter lots of german artillery with lots of armor.

[Toni]

What was the idea behind those Red Army SMG companies? Later SMG squads are purely armed with PPSH-41. Were they treated as "specialized" units with their own doctrine and separate tactics? When I think of "infantry in close combat" they immediately come to my mind...

[Gunnerr]

Originally posted by Toni:

What was the idea behind those Red Army SMG companies? Later SMG squads are purely armed with PPSH-41. Were they treated as "specialized" units with their own doctrine and separate tactics? When I think of "infantry in close combat" they immediately come to my mind...

Close combat, suppression, recons. Let me describe.

During a rifle company attacking, a submachineguns squad is use to inflfritate any weak points in enemy lines, as fighting gets closer(hand to hand), a smg is much preferable.

Smg squad also use as part of a rifle company on the attack, grasp enemy weakspot when opportunity arise.

Reconnaissance, much better to use a SMG. Lighter, easier to handle and you can shoot much quicker, combine with suppression you can escape enemy much more quicker.(soviet scouts prefer MP38/40, later on the PPS-43)

During low visibility, fogs and night time. Shootout begin in very close range, ideal for smgs.

During defense, smg squads stay behind rifle company(on the defense) to annihilate any enemy infiltration.

[=J13=Serenity]

To add my 5 cent
What I heard is that Soviets mistakenly assumed that Germans had SMG platoons armed exclusively with MP40 and machine guns. Soviets then decided to created their own counterparts. Of course germans never had those SMG platoons, but soviet, ironically, created their own unique formation. Its pretty much same idea as STG44 for germans, give all soldiers automatic weapon to get fire superiority without relying on MG.

[Toni]

Thanks! The Red Army was ahead of its time with this units; afaik the Germans did not have comparable ones in the earlier war, only later the SMG assault platoons. So I was interested in the initial idea behind those Red Army units. Maybe the "Winter War" experiences also initiated the creation of this "type" of unit...

[=J13=Serenity]

If what I read is true, than yes, Soviets were pretty smart