By Panzermeyer
Greetings Gents,
This is a short little article on something I have found of great value in saving lives in East Front - Smoke.
So far I have played Fortress in the Snow (IE Velikye Luke) twice as the Russians. In the first game I advanced a WHOLE bunch of infantry over open ground and got slaughtered by artillery fire and bunkered machine gun platoons. It was not pretty...only the use of my Tanks where going to be able to save the day.
The next time around (in addition to lucky timing) I have learned a little lesson. A little smoke goes along way.
In one of my assaulting areas I have used a series of smoke screens to protect my troops from fire of artillery and deadly entrenched fascist troops.
In the picture below you will see the terrain I was moving through and the end result of effective smoke fire.
To the Left there is a pillbox with an 88mm FLAK piece as well as a Machine Gun Platoon. Forest directly to the right of that bending down to a trench system with a rifle platoon in there (where the blue circle is) further to the right is more forest and a heavier defensive network centered around a bunker with 2 Machinegun platoons. Along the whole front of this there where also mine fields within the forest terrain.
You will also note the many craters in the snow. Surprisingly these holes caused very few casualties. This is thanks to smoke.
This is what I did. As my forces moved up through the open terrain to the lower left hand corner I put three smoke rounds directly in front of the pillbox (smoke continues there) and in the two hexes with the black X's in them. This made the open area safe to move through as no Germans could see me. As I advanced heading for the trench system (weakest point in the defense) I laid down smoke in the same areas the following turn...though this time including the trench. I preceded this with laying down heavy artillery fire into the trench system BEFORE the smoke is actually laid.
This cleared the trenches of the German rifle platoon. The following turn I laid smoke in the current locations you see. This has allowed my to advance into the trench system and have both my right and left flank protected from any observing German units.
Now German artillery fire into this smoke zone has been heavy but without observation, so it has mostly missed my Russian guardsmen as they have advanced onto the trench system. Last turn is was really nice as all the artillery fire fell to the hexes right BEHIND my guardsmen.
Now as you can see this smokescreen protection has saved the lives of my guardsmen as well as making my attack successful. I am in the trench system and in the trees giving my Russians excellent protecting from artillery fire and gunfire as well. I have the way in front of me full of cover and open so that I can move into the German defenses and start rolling them up from the rear cutting off German units.
Without successful and effective smoke fire I seriously doubt that my guardsmen would have even made it to the tree line.
So remember to blow smoke up your opponent's ass and it might save you ass.
Panzermeyer
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