Junior TC on Wednesdays

This is an awesome idea! Count me in when there are places left and i got time

Greetz
Ronin

Sgt_Kelly wrote:Personally I think we should maybe spend a few wednesdays working on tactics, maybe develop a few set plays for situations that occur a lot in these games (e.g. taking down a Tilda with a pack of PzIIIs) so we don't have to work everything out on the fly. B

Hi, ive been taking my pzIII out for the x2's each day recently, i have been looking out for a matilda but surprisingly i havent come across one as yet. However, I had mounted the T4 howitzer 7.5 cm KwK 37 L/24 and running exclusively HE rounds. This gun has low penetration compared to the preferred 5cm 39 L/60 (43 compared to 67mm) but in general, you always do damage. Quite often with a howitzer, module and crew damage is achieved which hinders the ability of the target to fight back, taking the gunner/loader/commander for example would hugely reduce the rate of fire, accuracy or load times for example. Just as every other howitzer (derp) gun, the velocity of the round is slow (you an actually see it fly!) so you do have to lead a moving target.

what im trying to say here is, rather than the pzIII wolf pack all using the 5cm gun, maybe we could also try a mix of guns so that when we come across a matilda, the howitzer pzIII's can concentrate fire against it and either kill or cripple it quickly.

You should be letting arty rape the Matildas My Bison loves a nice juicy Matilda!

If you need help with junior tc you can ask me,unfortunately I have enough experience,BUT only in training sessions and tank choices I hate playing tc and cw

Unfortunately, I have to work

Matildas should generally be left for the last when you can wolfpack them without worrying about other tanks. Enough space should be left for artillery to shoot them. Matildas are always priority target for arty. 5cm does have problems with penning Matilda, you should only really shoot it from the back. Of course you can shoot it from the front just to distract it. When Matilda is aiming at someone else you can stop and aim at it's back or axle jam it, which is good for arty too. In any case arty is important in bringing down a Matilda. Ideal case would be someone spotting a Matilda and arty taking car of the rest.

About the 7,5cm derp. It's more unreliable than the 5cm, only against Matildas it might be equal. The accuracy on the move is bad, shell flight time is long and damage is random. One problem is when you circle a Matilda with, let's say 4 Pz3s, one of which has the derp. Derp shoots Matilda, due to poor accuracy misses and hits an ally on the side for full dmg. Or you shoot while approaching a enemies, due to slow velocity an ally drives in the path of your shell and the shell hits his back, probably damaging his engine.

What I'm trying to say, 5cm is more flexible and reliable and has higher dpm. Heavy duty should be left to arty.

Patch out tomorrow!

Predownload details here
http://ftr-wot.blogspot.cz/2013/04/patch-85-warning.html

S

Hmm, for the 2nd time in a row I really enjoyed the Junior TC
I hope to do this soon again.
Since some people join late would it be worthwhile to generally start a bit later?

In the mean time I will try to train the arty crew some more so that they're up to spec

Michael

I think I made a mistake fully "pimping" PzIII even before first JTC played, because we need more Matildas, in my opinion. I regret a little bit 1 million credits and gold for perm cammo spend for Pz. We were struggling against fully defensive teams, with 4-5 Matildas. Funny thing is, that a best counter against Matilda is... Matilda itself (or arty of course). Wolfpacking is effective against a single, maybe two of them without support. OR We just need to improve this elemnt of TC's

I'd also say, that since we have a fully offensive setup (6-7 PzIII generally), MAYBE we should change tactics to more agressive. I mean "jumping" from place to place, rather than sitting near base or halfway to enemy, waiting for scout to check wehere they are. Because few times, when we finally knew where they are, they were placed defensively and, honestly, we couldn't do a thing about it, no matter how much we tried. I've got a feeling that Junior TC's are commanded too much like Mediums, static and full mapstrategy based. Maybe more experienced players would do more with same commands, but imperfect players, like myself, may be not capable to do such things. I was generally overwhelmed, flanked and pew-pewed to death



I'm not sure if I'm capable to lead whole company, but some maps I'd command in another way than they were last time. I don't know every single map well, but I can try once to lead you to, hopefully, not death (for two weeks, because I'm not sure if I'll attend next week)

Of course, I can't say that I'm not enjoying JTC's (also for moments like sending complains about Sapaki's commands on idontgiveashit@... mail ), but there are some points, which, again, in my opinion, would be changed and, for sure, improved.

Well, as I recall last week we had 4 Matildas available. So it depends who is coming or not (I don't have a Matilda)

I think Boos or Roninrage already suggested to get together for some kind of tactic planning which I think is a good idea.
The commander should know what he has available for the battle

And yes, I think we al did upgrades, which in hindsight and in battles, wasn't the smartest idea

Cheers

I think I should give some of my low tier expertise here (I'm a low tier specialist namely) and I've commanded some experimental Junior TCs and faced massive Matilda TCs...

The trick I found when facing against a huge Matilda enemy TC is to overwhelm then fast, the theory I base this on is that the Matilda is going to get the upper hand in a prolonged battle, the less time you give the players in the Matilda to react and get themselves into a suitable position, the better. This theory has proven correct thus far.

Junior TCs has three major differences from Medium TCs and that is:

1) Individual player skill is much more emphasized, rather than the skill of a whole team in general. In turn, general team tactics play a slightly diminished role.
2) One-on-one combat should occur more regularly or should feel like it's occurring more regularly, if it doesn't, you're doing something wrong.
3) It is much more fast paced. Critical events happen in less than 30 seconds and if the commander or indeed the players themselves do not react, then it's all over before they know it.

I see you guys seem to be struggling to come up with tactics for Junior TCs, so I'll share some of the tactics I find works rather well in Junior TCs through my experimental TCs.

1) My famed ambush tactic, where the whole team camps in one spot and takes the enemy by surprise works still in Junior TCs. However, I usually place the camping spot somewhere near our cap. As what I tend to find is sometimes the enemy team cannot wait to win and they send their fast tanks ahead of their slow tanks such as the Matilda to cap. In this case, they are literally doomed on the spot as they decide that, as it would mean I've split their fighting force into two and decided to take on each force separately with the full might of my force...if that makes sense?

2) Another tactic I sometimes employ is the bait/lure tactic. I would send 2 fast tanks of mine to briefly engage the enemy group. Then order them to retreat. What happens next is fairly predictable, the enemy fast tanks go chasing after our retreating fast tanks, while I lure the enemy fast tanks to a good spot and blast them with all of my tanks. Again, I've split the enemy fighting force into two parts.

3) Sometimes you will see a Junior TCs made exclusively from slow and hard to kill tanks like the Matilda. This makes the above 2 tactics less realistic, hence, when I see this, I usually aim for the cap. Sometimes the enemy will leave behind a small contingent of tanks to defend cap. I would kill that small group, then when I see the enemy main fleet coming back to defend the cap, I would pull my force away. What happens next is usually the enemy leaves behind ANOTHER 1 or 2 tanks to defend the cap while the main group attacks. I will attack the smallest group again. This continues as I attack the smallest group until their fighting force is reduced to a small size, then either cap them or wipe them out.

4) Sometimes you know your team is filled with some of the best players you can get your hands on. When this happens, I vote in favour of the individually engage tactic. I would command my TC to a spot where my tankers can engage the enemy group in close quarters combat extremely fast, usually in a built area. Then I lure the enemy into this spot by whichever means necessary. What follows is I try to assign each member of my team a specific target to kill...thus making the battle between the teams more personal. Whoever on my team fails to kill their target must have their target assigned to another person ASAP. This tactic only works if your team is highly skilled and your commander very fast in reactions.

The above are the 4 usual tactics I use, I use more, but they are met with varying levels of success.

One CRUCIAL point I'd like to mention which stands for Junior TCs in particular is....DO NOT BE AFRAID TO DISENGAGE. I mean it, in Medium or higher TCs your tanks might be too slow to disengage quickly, but in Junior TCs it is usually well possible to disengage. I cannot remember how many battles that were saved due to disengaging the enemy at an appropriate time! So commanders, don't forget about that!

Wow Ding! That's a lot of information.

ok my thoughts about the strategy discussion:

I played JTC with some german guys last winter some sunday afternoons with an excellent winrate. They used NO Matildas at all.
Setups where:
2 most time 3 Su-26/Wespe,
1 or 2 Special/Scouttanks (T2 Light, M3 Lee, etc)
the rest: Panzer III or T-28

Depending on the enemy there were different playstyles:
When "easy baite" was spotted (to less Tier Points, strange tanks for tc, and so on) they where just panzerballed/lemmingtrained down (Scout(s) Passiv on key Positions to not be countered)

In other cases so with typical setups for a tc 2 groups of Panzer III where formed(not before the battle, defined when seeing the spawn result to be flexible and don't waste time on regrouping also the first Panzer III was name giving so in example there was a group PLAYER A (consists of A, C and E) and a group PLAYER B (consists of B, D and F) which makes comm easier because all tankers know which part of which group they are)
1 Group for each flank, Scout passiv in key position (spotting, counter scouting, or retreating on contact) if the scout got a group contact 1 or all 2 Panzer III groups changed flanks to scouts previous position and the scout secures some other area.
The Panzer III's only had two tasks:
don't be shot by their arty (stay alive)
hold back/slow down the enemies attack.
The main damage/kills were done by the arties. The almost "Mantra" like sentence of the commanders for this is "let the arties do their Job"
What did not mean that Panzer III's did no damage they only did it in way as less risky as possible.
EXCEPTION: Panzerball
The arties used overhead markers to show where they fire (to warn the team which enemys not to hug;-) )
... a point i did not do myself on the last TC ... shame on me.

This is no complain/mimimi post this are just differences i observed after my 2nd SGTA JTC compared to the JTC's i did before.
Also I do not think I am able to do a better job as field commander than ours did the last times.
For me it is hard enough to follow just the orders give to me not have to think on the orders for somebody else;-)
Do not forget I don't even got 2K matches at all at the moment so this thoughts/observations might not be to qualified nor taken to seriouse.

Greetz
Ronin

Wow O.o that is a lot of valuable feedback! Much appreciated. I will try to read it all before tonight, but I am really busy and to be honest a bit stressed out. Hopefully I can command, but if not, can I ask for commanding volunteers already?

I might be able to drop in, should have this evening free.

I hope I can join today, but I'm not 100% sure yet. What time do you start?

18.30 UTC.

my little panza should be waiting for the call!
do we normally have enough arty players, i can buy one if not, ive been learning the arty way over the last few weeks and sort of getting there, platooning with monty was very good btw

Tier 2(T2 LT) or 3 (Pz I c) Scouts, Pz III and Su-26 armed and ready for some Junior TCs today ;-)

SU18, SU26, UC2-pdr, Valentine AT, Alecto, T18 all standing by and ready

And? Did I miss much? My thoughts were with you guys, but my GF had decided that it was time for me to go out, so we went to a small concert. Hope you had fun, guys!

As I said yesterday, we won all the fair fights . We had a score of 6 wins and 1 draw up until 3 last games. Then last 3 games were assault maps against gold spammer teams, and this point we had 4 Matildas. Attacking + gold spammers + Matildas = Baaaaaaad. Ended up losing the last 3.

ah, you encountered the goldspam-rush-squads.

I got up this morning and the invite tab was flashing, i made the mistake of leaving game running last night but was afk, and so i apologies if i was invited but failed to respond.I am a new recruit and so i have only just found out about junior4 TC,but i will certainly be there next week.

I have never been in a TC and dont want to let anyone down so some TC training would be cool if anyone can ar4range it. Also what are the prefered tanks, ive heard mention of KV1S's but i dont see why as personally i dont think they are that special, at least not with my performance my upgraded KV3 is near4ly as fast but with better armor. Also the top gun is the 122mm but im thinking the 107mm zis6 suits me better as faster reload.

No worries speedie The whole idea of these TCs is to train ourselfs. Just join and do not worrie.

speedie6 wrote:I got up this morning and the invite tab was flashing, i made the mistake of leaving game running last night but was afk, and so i apologies if i was invited but failed to respond.I am a new recruit and so i have only just found out about junior4 TC,but i will certainly be there next week.

I have never been in a TC and dont want to let anyone down so some TC training would be cool if anyone can ar4range it. Also what are the prefered tanks, ive heard mention of KV1S's but i dont see why as personally i dont think they are that special, at least not with my performance my upgraded KV3 is near4ly as fast but with better armor. Also the top gun is the 122mm but im thinking the 107mm zis6 suits me better as faster reload.

I can arrange for 1on1 preparatory sessions if you will be kind enough to contact me in-game.

Also, the KV-3 is a tier above the KV-1S and cannot be used for Med TCs so there is really no comparison there.