Countering smoke pushes
I'm having the hardest time countering smoke pushes from german divisions such as 91. Luftlande. I'm not talking about a couple smokes, but industrial smoke pushes with 2-3 50mm mortars in early phase A.
The gws are so inexpensive that there always seems to be more even when I manage to kill one using an early artillery, disrupt support fire from specialist units/support tanks I may bring, and the strategy happens so early in the game that I can rarely barrage ahead of smoked positions because I have insufficient concentration of arty.
Since I mostly play divisions that cannot match enemy infantry 1 on 1, I'm forced to fall back, and this means I grant tons of land for basically free in phase A.
Do you guys have any idea how to counter an early smoke push from a division having better infantry than you do ?
Posted Nov 7, 2017, 7:53 AM UTC
It would help if we knew what divisions you play.
As far as the Luftlande itself go, their A phase tanks are pretty useless, and if you can shut down their Pak40 right at the start, their AT capacity is even worse because they have to rely on extremely close range stuff. Countering FSJ spam with bad infantry and no flamethrowers is going to be extremely difficult without using vehicles, but also remember that when fighting FSJ you want them as close as possible, because a lot of their HE and suppression comes from the two MGs they carry.
None of these things are much of an issue outside of extremely densely packed forests or towns, and the division will have a hard time fighting in open terrain in phase A, so if anything try and pick your terrain better or push areas where you have the advantage. Also use your own mortars to barrage the smoke, not bigger arty pieces, they will react quick enough and fire fast enough to put in some suppression and damage.
I try to play scots these days. They typically don't really have decent A phase artillery, and any tanks you get to push forward (except Honey) are slow and not really effective at mounting a push.
Note that this strat isn't exclusive to luftlande. My question is more about resisting smoke pushes when you play weak infantry, seeing how smoke is exceptionally good at breaking inter-arms coordination.
Your question? Didn't u/blitzanswer ask it?
Also the 50mm mortars in conjunction with fallshcirmjaegers is expensive. Go around and hold the line with some vickers and riflemen using a commander nearby to buff them, a honey that can quickly pop out if they sit at 300-400m and paste them with all it's mmgs is also good.
You have a light bomber in phase A I believe so you could use it to panic/kill those mortars as soon as they start to fire.
Same person, different accounts. One for my laptop, and one for my computer.
I'll have to try the light bomber phase A thing.
ah ok. Yeah you also have the 200pt rocket plane as well. You can always use these to counter the push too if you want, then rush something cheap and fast forwards to surrender the pinned troops.