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So after getting some great responses to my LW Grenadier Kompanie post, I thought I'd reach out to the internet again for some help with a MW Panzerkompanie list build from the Eastern Front book. This one seems like a pretty significant challenge due to the equipment available to a German player and the vast hordes of Soviets one is likely to face. I'm attempting to keep the force at 1,500pts, which is also proving problematic. So far I have the following:

HQ: 180
2x PNZ III G

COMBAT PLTS: 840
3x PNZ III M
3x PNZ III M
2x PNZ II F

DIV SUPPORT: 480
Gepanzerte Panzergrenadier PLT w/6x MG Teams, CMD Panzerknacker SMG Team
4x 10.5cm Howitzers

Right now this force feels like it is far too small to effectively go on the offensive against massed Soviet infantry. In theory the PNZ II Fs and GPGs would be enough to sieze an objective with some fire support from the howitzers. However, I'm having a hard time getting much of anything into the force that I feel can adequately tackle Soviet armor. The PNZ III Ms will likely perform well against T-34s, but the whole army would likely be "up the creek" against KV or other heavy tanks. Any insights would be appreciated.

I'm not especially knowledgable on MW but in general I would say, to deal with heavy tanks, perhaps bring AT guns and hope to get a nice position for them where they can cover the panzers, or smoke them into oblivion with the artillery to keep them on the move and reduce their ROF.
In a pinch the 105's can knock them out with barrage or direct fire.

That's a question I have concerning artillery. Generally speaking, how effective is artillery against armor? It seems like a round the size of a 10.5cm would be able to knock out enemy tanks pretty well; is firepower/AT determined against a tank's top armor when firing an artillery barrage?

I could work some points around to put a pair of PaK 36rs into the lineup, but I'd obviously prefer some 88s. It seems like a gun with a range of at least 32in is necessary to properly cover the Panzers. So the question is how to go about getting them into the proper position?

What about reducing the number of 10.5cm howitzers and giving the force some air support? A Ju87 G Stuka could go a long way, but I'd likely only be able to afford Limited Air Support. Is that reliable enough to warrant fielding?

1500 is problematic for Panzers,its hard to make an effective list as everything is so expensive.

I have been thinking about redesigning my own MW list into this;

2 Pz III J

3 Pz III L, 1 Pz III J

3 Pz III L, 1 Pz III J

Full Panzergrenadier platoon with 'knacker and light mortar

2 8-rad

2 Marder I

The Pz III platoons are your work horses, they can be relied upon to do well against anything that isn't a heavy tank.

The 8 -rads are cheap recce but they can also be suprisingly effective against soft targets

The Marders are a weak point but you really need something that can at least worry KV-1s, Churchills etc



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Big S'arnt wrote:
That's a question I have concerning artillery. Generally speaking, how effective is artillery against armor? It seems like a round the size of a 10.5cm would be able to knock out enemy tanks pretty well; is firepower/AT determined against a tank's top armor when firing an artillery barrage?

Artillery generally isn't great against armour, it can work but it has a fairly low kill rate. IIRC veteran light artillery has about a 10% of killing a top armour 1 tank. Heavy artillery is better but that is very expensive. In direct fire artillery tends to be fairly effective against armour but they are easy to kill and they have a low RoF. I never take artillery in an armour list.

88's are very good but they are also easy to kill yet very expensive. Personally I only use the cheap Luftwaffe ones in LW.

So you just rely on your tanks to do the necessary pinning for you? I could see that working; using my PNZ II Fs and GPGs with their half tracks should be enough MGs to pin an enemy unit. That doesn't provide enough points to work extra PNZ IIIs into the list, but makes a nice block of armor for the assault force.

I was able to work in 3x Marder Is, which is somewhat comforting. Hopefully they'll be able to at least bother or distract KVs and other heavy tanks. With a few left over points I upgraded my CMD tanks to PNZ IV Es to give them slightly better guns and have something on the table capable of shooting smoke rounds.

I think I'd rather keep the half tracks to get some additional MGs into the force and make use of the Mounted Assault rule. That seems more beneficial than trucks and a light mortar.

88's or marders are a good idea. 88's are fine so long as they have a nice bit of area terrain to sit in and pop away. 40" range is easily enough to cover most situations.
Panzerkompanies or armoured lists in general can be run without arty but any assault without adequate artillery preparation is going to be dicey.

 Big S'arnt wrote:
So you just rely on your tanks to do the necessary pinning for you? I could see that working; using my PNZ II Fs and GPGs with their half tracks should be enough MGs to pin an enemy unit. That doesn't provide enough points to work extra PNZ IIIs into the list, but makes a nice block of armor for the assault force.

I was able to work in 3x Marder Is, which is somewhat comforting. Hopefully they'll be able to at least bother or distract KVs and other heavy tanks. With a few left over points I upgraded my CMD tanks to PNZ IV Es to give them slightly better guns and have something on the table capable of shooting smoke rounds.

I think I'd rather keep the half tracks to get some additional MGs into the force and make use of the Mounted Assault rule. That seems more beneficial than trucks and a light mortar.

I actually don't tend to pin before assaults using armour, if I can I will but sometimes you just can't get enough hits, I try to use terrain to cut down on defensive fire or at least pick an angle of attack with the least AT weapons. Its less than ideal but armoured lists simply lack pinning options.

What do you intend to do with the Pz IIs? They are expensive but very fragile and their gun is pretty feeble. In early war they are ok but by mid war they are past their best. You do need recce but you can't really go wrong with the much cheaper 8-rads.

Motorised panzer grenadiers are 40 points cheaper than armoured ones and to be honest I find that I dismount well before contact anyway, even from half tracks.

I reworked the list and came up with something like this:

HQ: 200pts
2x PNZ IV E
I don't intend to put my CO/XO into the thick of the fighting, and opted for the PNZ IV E so that I'd have something on the table capable of shooting smoke in support of other units.

COMBAT PLTs: 720pts
3x PNZ III N w/Shurzen side skirts
3x PNZ III N w/Shurzen side skirts
Obviously I wanted to make these two PLTs as good as I could to ensure they would have some chance against the inevitable hordes of T-34s they'll face; against KV-1s they'll be in some trouble though

DIV SUPPORT: 580pts
Gepanzerte Panzergrenadier PLT w/6x MG teams, Panzerknacker CMD SMG team
Without artillery support, these guys are going to have to pin enemy units themselves; half tracks seemed like a decent investment in order to get the necessary MGs to do so

Heavy Panzerspah PLT w/2x 8-Rads
I would prefer the PNZ II Fs as I wanted to use them to help support the GPGs in assaults in addition to their recon role. But, those 8-Rads are a pretty good deal, so they'll have to do. Too bad they're so ugly, haha.

Heavy AA Gun PLT w/ 2x 8.8cm AA guns and extra crew upgrades
These are the only things I have on the table capable of taking out KV-1s and the like, so I figured I'd spring for the extra crew. If mobility becomes an issue, I'll probably downgrade the GPG to motorized Grenadiers and field a pair of Hornisses instead.