Battle for Moscow (german skirmish)

[Kommissar Beard]

I know that skimish mode isn't that popular, but bruh why first german one is SO hard. It is literally impossible to achieve victory because germans has ONLY light AT weapon (& limited number of 88 which available only in 1 doctrine & u can call it only 3 times) while soviets have b4 heavy arty (which destroy everything & outrange u at any distance) and spam kv-1 & kv-2 every 3-4 minutes.

Please just give me a chance by giving germans ANYTHING that can pen soviets, or some advice how to walk-though this mission.

Thx in advance

[Arpente Reves]

You get the 88 with the heavy artillery cap
As for how to take care of KVs
Smokes will blind them, which can be good enough sometimes. The 50 AT artillery has access to APCR that can pen KV-1's turrets at medium range

Again, smokes are pretty handy to soft disable them. If they are immobilized, you can also use a flamethrower on the engine. Once you get access to the heavy tank cap, you'll also have HEAT rounds that can pen KVs from the side

edit my bad it's a 50mm AT artillery

[Ch53dVet]

Exchange those 88's for the 10.5 CM Artillery (Defensive Doctrine) and guard them with your life blood until you can buildup the forces you need to tread onward. The enemy base directly in-front of you gives you medium to large support weapons, 100 mm mortars and the 7.5 CM light infantry field gun that shoots Heat rounds that will hold the armor at bay, you'll need many more than one for that purpose, the base to the right flank gives you upgraded infantry to help you fight armored vehicles. The base on your far left flank doesn't give you anything useful to die for. Take into consideration "Admiral Ackbar's"
last minute warning to his troops "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" before attempting to take that base ill-prepared.

Take a look at "Kampfer91's" Guide to German Doctrines and all the equipment available
for each doctrine used in all the German Skirmish maps. It's in the Guide Section.

[Spruance]

Just did this today with defensive doctrine and it was a slog. A lot of save scumming... If I did it again I would definitely use all-round doctrine for the artillery signaler to speed up the destruction of emplacements.

Basically I took a sniper, grabbed a mg and at grenades, and cleared up the right flank and captured the special cp for airstrikes. I disabled the heavy tank destroyer near the special cp and captured it. Behind the tank is two heavy aa and a heavy artillery gun that i also captured. Once you are finished capturing things, fall back to the front line before you run out of supplies. Use bombers to slowly take out emplacements and spam elite jaegers to man trenches to hold the line against enemy infantry. Finally grab the medium tank cp on the left and spam panzer iiis for the win.

[Saxhorn]

IMO the single player skirmish missions are the most difficult part of the game and the German early war ones (Battle of Moscow and Mamayev Kurgan) are the hardest in the USSR / Germany campaigns. The enemy tanks are very difficult to stop.

The best standard AT gun you get when using all-rounder is the 5cm PaK 38 and whilst it's OK at destroying the light tanks (BT series and T-70) about all it can do to a T-34 or KV is hit the tracks and immobilise the tank. It can't destroy those tanks before it gets knocked out. So throw smoke and get off the gun and hide once the tanks are tracked.

Once tracked you can use an airstrike or artillery or an FLaK 88 to finish the tank off.

If you want a challenge go in close with demo charges or a flamethrower. Flamethrowers can be hard to obtain.

The artillery signaller can be use very effectively if the tanks are tracks in a big blob. His flare pistol can arc a flare over some terrain from safety and he has 11 flares. I like to give the flare pistol to a tank crewman because any soldier can use it. I also only have the loaded flare pistol and 1 spare round. That way if the soldier is killed I don't lose all the ammo for the other pistols.

In Moscow there is a disabled engineer truck on the road very close to the German HQ.
At Mamayev Kurgan there is a fully operational engineer truck at the HQ.
These trucks contain demolition charges, Anti-tank and Anti-personnell mines.

You can use sniper lay these mines along the paths the enemy will use to take out a wave or two. The AT mines will track or disable the enemy tanks.

It's also possible to capture Soviet equipment. I usually try and get at least one 85mm AA gun and a Soviet 76mm AT gun. The 45mm AT guns won't be of much use but are always appreciated.

The first part of the mission is all about sneaking around the map. Working out what the enemy has and where it is. What artillery does the enemy have and how far down the map can it fire? How close can I setup my defensive line and be out of range of the enemy arty.

You can use a sniper or two to go and destroy the enemy artillery with demo charges early in the game and then you don't have to worry about it later. Or you can find a few molotovs and kill the crew leaving the weapon undamaged and try to steal it.

For Mamayev Kurgan you can successfully steal enemy artillery pieces by driving the engineer truck down one side of the map. Capture or neutralise the "medium tank" zone and watch out for 85mm AA guns in the "airstrike" zone.

There's usually a few enemy tanks hanging (T34 or less) around and I use rifle grenadiers in groups of 3 to ambush these tanks. If you find a KV hanging out the back then that flare pistol will sort it out.

You can spend an hour just on reconnaissance. Once you know where everything is you can plan.

Or you can bumrush and throw units into the Soviet wall of steel.

It's a sandbox so play anyway you enjoy.

[Saxhorn]

Here's a screenshot of Mamayev Kurgan. Note the minimap.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3365950795

Right here I'm trying to work out if I can repair the T34 that I've knocked with my rifle grenade team. I poked the tank and it attacked and was knocked out by my rifle granade teams. I didn't "cheese" it. I want to capture the T34 but as soon as I try to drive away in it that 85mm is going to destroy it.

Most people use the binoculars for the UAV like circle of view but they are also excellent for working out if unit can shoot at you. If you can see it through the binoculars then it's got a clear line of sight but might not be in range.

I've captured the AT gun zone and with it a 82mm mortar which is safely hidden behind terrain. I could start lobbing mortar rounds at the 85mm AA gun but I still haven't found what the enemy has further down the map.

So recon needs to continue.

I have found a bloody big KV just sitting down the back.

[Metal Izanagi]

Yeah, the early-war Nazi side skirmishes are brutal. Soviets get the KV-1 and you have very little that can deal with them from a distance.

[kampfer91]

I use sniper to sneak cap the heavy arty point to get something that can actually destroy KV-1 early on.
Though , another way to do this if you don't cheese capping is actually not engage the KV-1 with your AT gun at all , get it to move closer to your location , kill the infantry that accompany it , use AT use de-track the thing , use smoker to hide your infantry and either : 1 / throw 2 TNT if you intend to capture it , 2 / Throw AT nade on the hatch .

[Kommissar Beard]

Thx guys, appreciate it

[Spruance]

Also you can place mines in front of the enemy spawn while you're sneaking around back there, but do it before you start capturing cps.

[Alexander]

I wonder are the devs happy with the current state of skirmish or are they planning some changes?

[kampfer91]

So far i didn't see them give big changes to the already existed Skirmishes .
Mostly they changed some unit-call in and pre-placed enemy A.I unit on the map .

The dev on discord however did acknowledged that some skirmished is...lackluster or bad , for example final German skirmish , it was supposed to be Battle of Bulge instead of Berlin but during the time they make Finnish DLC , the America faction was not yet finished . They learned a lot of what to avoid during the making of Finnish DLC and the skirmish battles .

[static addict]

i wonder if this skirmish is historically accurate in terms of equipment availability.

[Arpente Reves]

Except numbers and scale, it's not really that far