Al Kufrah Oilfield tactics

[swiftdraw]

Well, just got off of Al Kufrah Oilfield as USMC and we lost again, but at least we tried. In hopes of a non-base rape USMC win (base rape early is the only way I've seen USMC win there), heres what kinda worked (if it really worked, we'd of won!) and what didn't.

Tactics that kinda worked:
Littlebird and tank combo; 2 tank crewman, pilot, H-AT, (engi would be nice too, but we had 5 guys at the time)
This is simple enough, spot enemy tank from LB before enemy tank has a chance to plink our squad tank. What happened was the other enemy heli showed up, the H-AT was put on the ground and he shot the enemy heli. Nicely done except the whole wrecking on RTB. After the fact something else came to mind, spot enemy tank, drop H-AT in flanking position to hit the enemy tank. Flush the tank out allowing the squad's tank to finish it off if necessary. Pick up H-AT, go to ammo supply, rinse and repeat. Trick is finding a pilot good enough to pull off the LB job. Wheels fell off when the LB crashed on RTB and us in the tank were blind-sided by a T-90 at range.

Stand off H-AT; Officer, 2 Engineer, Designated Marksman, H-AT, Rifleman
After establishing a perimeter around Oil Storage (henceforth OS), or H-AT decided to take a humvee and keep off to the sides. We also sent out a engi to spot tanks inbound to OS. Once spotted the H-At would shift as necessary and keep at a good stand-off range to the sides of the tank, allowing a spotter (the lead engi or otherwise) to call in the results and adjustments needed. We stood off three armor assaults before our sniper left (thus denying us a distant view and good suppression of the dread G3) and our H-AT was plinked. After that the wheels fell off with no H-AT support and the flag fell a few minutes later.

Dual H-AT; 2 H-AT, 2 Riflemen, DM (wish he was medic), (officer would be nice too but I was busy giving ammo and we had 5 guys )
Defensive posture only and on a good choke point. This is hard to pull off if only for the fact that its extraordinarily difficult to get 2 H-AT in a single squad. But the precise coordination of 2 H-AT is a force to be reckoned with. Up against our Deployment Point, the two H-AT took out at least 4 tanks and made several fall back relieving pressure on the defensive line. This fell apart after I was taken down by a supporting tank and a MEC manage to grab the kit... Then took down the other H-AT and took his kit... 3 enemy H-AT (2 ours, 1 theirs) with incoming tanks; we had no chance.

What didn't work at all:

CQB and range engagements against G3 Seriously, the three round burst on the M16 needs work. The G3 has us at range, I understand this, its a battlerifle. But the problem remained when the 3burst failed to take down an opponent at point blank range and full auto from the G3 takes down a rifleman and medic in one spray. As it happened, the medic didn't fire because the rifleman was in the direct line of fire, so the return fire was to little to late. I manage to finish the MEC off, but my guys were killed (not CW.) Mid-range fire fights (as in you're able to see the target easily with out a scope) the M16 can hold its own, but range and CQB its at a dis-advantage. Outside of DM, sniper, or armor support, the MEC has USMC standard infantry beaten in almost every aspect and new tactics must be developed to counter the threat the G3 poses.

Engineers in towers; Seriously, get down, lay mines, C4 and get in ambush positions. You have no scope and little range capability, you're no help on a roof or on a oil derrick.

Charging entrenched tanks 2 M1's will lose out to one entrenched T-90, I know, I saw it happen. Spotting and inter-squad communications are a must to take out a stationary tank. Distract the T-90 with M1's and flank with engi's or H-Ats in striking distance with a humvee or LB to take it out. We tried this and it worked 3 out of 5 times. It's rare to have a T-90 with dedicated infantry support, so hitting a blind spot, provided you know them is relativity easy. Charging forward, even with superior numbers, is a sure way for disaster.


Well, I'll add more if I think of them. Right now I'm tired and need to go to bed.

[Outlawz7]

Wrong forum?
I suggest this in the main one, this is SL Tactics, not Map Tactics..

[swiftdraw]

Yes but this is squad base tactics and what to looks for. It is limited to s specific map, but still on a squad level. This is just tips on for a squad lead to use on Kufrah.

Also if I put this on the general forum I've got the feeling I'd get 'wrong forum' post there too.

Edit: Ah the 'Normal Thread' on tactics. Ok, that would work nicely.

[Metis-M]

Stand off H-AT; Officer, 2 Engineer, Designated Marksman, H-AT, Rifleman

NO!

A tankhunter squad dont need Designated Marksman.
Marksman is medium range fastshooting sniper, not tankhunter. He should be located where no tanks but many infantry.
At same time your squad lack any medic. And has only one Rifleman for resupply 2 Engineers and H-AT.

This squad take to much ressources from team.

Dual H-AT; 2 H-AT, 2 Riflemen, DM(wish he was medic)

No!
About DM I said.
2 H-At on Kufrah in one squad means they are only on one direction. On other direction no H-AT support for team.
Sometimes I asked me where are all H-ATs when they are needed, now i know in your or similar squad.

This squad take to much ressources from team.

[Deadfast]

NO!

A tankhunter squad dont need Designated Marksman.
Marksman is medium range fastshooting sniper, not tankhunter. He should be located where no tanks but many infantry.
At same time your squad lack any medic. And has only one Rifleman for resupply 2 Engineers and H-AT.

This squad take to much ressources from team.

And beside from that, H-AT is medium to long range sniper by itself .

No!
About DM I said.
2 H-At on Kufrah in one squad means they are only on one direction. On other direction no H-AT support for team.
Sometimes I asked me where are all H-ATs when they are needed, now i know in your or similar squad.

This squad take to much ressources from team.

You may call 2 H-AT's in single squad wasting resources or bad for team, but it's actually good idea.
Imagine this. You've got 2 H-AT's, but each one on the other side of the map.
Now they there's a tank comming to each one.
The H-AT fires, hits, but guess what. The tank just puts on reverse, gets behind hill and in a minute he's back on the hill trying to shoot down the H-AT.
Recently I've been playing this map (Al Kufrah) like US. We were pushed to our main, so me and my squad-mate both took H-AT's, commander dropped supply crate and you should have seen the tank massacre. We both fired at same moment and before the tank could react he it was just a smoking wreck.
So I think it's better to have 1 squad able to kill tanks on one place, than 2 squad able to annoy tanks at 2 places.

[Metis-M]

pushed to our main

You talk about a special situation with only one direction.

I talk about normal situation, where the team have to take and hold flags at different directions.

But you are right if only one direction 2H-ATs are much more effective.

[ReaperMAC]

2 HATs in a squad are more effective, its better to have 1 tank destroyed than 2 partially damaged tanks who can come back and attack, possibly killing the HAT. Plus you shouldnt be relying on HAT to take out tanks, thats why you have your own tanks! Plus, the other team will most likely have a solo tanker so its not too hard.

[swiftdraw]

NO!

A tankhunter squad dont need Designated Marksman.
Marksman is medium range fastshooting sniper, not tankhunter. He should be located where no tanks but many infantry.
At same time your squad lack any medic. And has only one Rifleman for resupply 2 Engineers and H-AT.

This squad take to much ressources from team.

I didn't pick the kit dude, I was just saying what I had in the squad at the time. Also, we were not a tank hunter squad. Anyways, it was nice to have him in the derrick and he was the only one that could effectively take out a rifleman G3 reliably at range. This was a defensive set up as it was just our squad at Oil Storage and it work wonderfully for about three assaults. Yes it took up resources, but as the rest of our team was busy trying to Zerg rush oil storage futilely (two entrenched tanks and at least two squads defending) and we had no commander to set up defenses, so we took what we could get.

No!
About DM I said.
2 H-At on Kufrah in one squad means they are only on one direction. On other direction no H-AT support for team.
Sometimes I asked me where are all H-ATs when they are needed, now i know in your or similar squad.

This squad take to much ressources from team.

Quiet frankly two H-ats work better in a squad than two running around separately in this defensive situation. Communication and coordination is far better, and you stand to destroy a tank rather than just damaging it especially snice they must go through that steep walled valley and bridge to get to the base. On an offensive footing, you really shouldn't have two H-Ats in a squad unless the commander has you in a highly mobile, dedicated AT squad. Even in that case, thats what the tanks are for and H-AT (in my opinion) should be fore squad security for capping and defending a flag.

Again, I'd rather would've had the DM as a medic in this situation, but at this point he wasn't listening to me

[swiftdraw]

2 HATs in a squad are more effective, its better to have 1 tank destroyed than 2 partially damaged tanks who can come back and attack, possibly killing the HAT. Plus you shouldnt be relying on HAT to take out tanks, thats why you have your own tanks! Plus, the other team will most likely have a solo tanker so its not too hard.

In this case, no. Mongol AlantaFalcon, fuzzhead and a few others were pairing up in tanks and our tanks weren't even getting close. Mostly, our tanks would charge their position as a single tank or maybe a pair and got knocked out rather quickly. The armor coordination on the MEC side really did us in.

[ReaperMAC]

In this case, no. Mongol AlantaFalcon, fuzzhead and a few others were pairing up in tanks and our tanks weren't even getting close. Mostly, our tanks would charge their position as a single tank or maybe a pair and got knocked out rather quickly. The armor coordination on the MEC side really did us in.

Well, it seems that you were the unlucky ones there. If your tankers had communication as fuzzhead's WAC armor squad, they may have had a chance too.

[Masaq]

In this case, no. Mongol AlantaFalcon, fuzzhead and a few others were pairing up in tanks and our tanks weren't even getting close. Mostly, our tanks would charge their position as a single tank or maybe a pair and got knocked out rather quickly. The armor coordination on the MEC side really did us in.

The point still stands though. When the life expectancy of an infantry starts to plummet in the face of paired enemy tanks, it's better to have two HAT available to smack ONE of the tanks hard enough to kill it than to damage them both, or worse- damage two individual tanks from two seperate pairings.

Tankers get wary in the face of HAT troops. The second they get hit by a HAT round, they're put on the defensive - the HAT trooper becomes their biggest priority (unless there's another tank in the area) because he's the only thing around that can seriously hurt/kill him.

Hit him once, he's going to repair and come gunning for you.

Best case scenario is that he doesn't, you survive long enough to get a second shot on him, he dies. Worst case, he's able to fully repair and then kills you - leaving that HAT kit unavailable for 5 minutes. In either situation, that tank's buddy is still around. Alive or dead, you're still facing an enemy tank - and now you're out of ammo and need to find a handy ammo bag.


Now, if there's two of you working together, the worst case scenario is pretty much the same: you die, and there's still a tank up.

However, if you've worked together and made sure your first shots go to the same tank, you've GOT a definite tank kill. Now, if you both survive long enough to reload and get your second shots off- thats TWO tanks down. If you both die, you've still made the remaining tank MUCH more vulnerable to your team's air support and armor, because you've taken his buddy out.


The only drawback is that your side has no HAT cover elsewhere. On the positive side is that whereever you and your HAT buddy go, your team *know* they have the capability to knock out a tank within seconds.

What's more is that you two can move around the battlefield, so it's not even that you're limiting the HAT to a single point on the map:

Infantry are mobile, dead bodies aren't.

[swiftdraw]

Well, then you got yourself a dedicated tank hunting squad. I mean, if you're going to cap flags and stay in one place for an extended amount of time, two H-AT in one squad would be rather detrimental to the team if the tanks don't come to you. But as I said in a previous post, a highly mobile AT squad is a viable strategy for a squad, but thats why you have tanks on your side too.

Edit: I was referring to Reaper saying a lot of tankers go solo and thus easier to take out. When I said 'in this case no', I meant about there being two people in a tank, and not just one. Also you usually had two tanks cover each other, backed into a corner making for a difficult approach to take out the tanks.