A nice solid performance, to nobody's surprise, I'm sure. With the BMP-3 dropping the ball, this is actually the first run we've got to use an autocannon. Worth the wait!

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Platoon Patrol 7: Panzergrenadiers

Welcome back to Combat Mission Shock Force 2 for the seventh instalment of the Platoon Patrol series. This time we’re taking the German Panzergrenadiers out in their Marders. Their SF2 TOE has a couple of options: I’ve gone for Marder 1A5s instead of 1A3s, which doesn’t make a lot of practical difference here, but I have taken the G82 rifle out for the platoon HQ instead of the G22, mostly because it gets twice as much ammunition.

As always, the objective in our scenario is to find and destroy a reinforced squad of US Marines hanging about in one of five locations on our map. Our competing platoon starts from a random entry point and goes from there. This time, we rolled up a two, so we’re starting on the eastern map edge again.

Kick Off

From here the logical first place to check is Bravo. This is clear, though I did sit on top for a while to see if the Marders could spot anything with their thermal imagers. They didn’t, so I went on down to Charlie. After a little probing this also turned out to be clear, but moving through it one of the Marders spotted some enemy infantry over at Delta.

So we are, once again, attacking Delta. And, once again, we’re coming at it from the direction of Charlie. This time I have two considerations. First, that the Marders are going to have to do the heavy lifting. The dismounts don’t have the bodies to soak up casualties and the IFVs have more than enough firepower to snuff out any targets that present themselves, so whatever approach I take, it needs to be one where I can bring the Marder’s weapons to bear.

Second, I still need to close with the enemy. It’s not going to be enough to just blast all the buildings indiscriminately, there’s always going to be some plucky Marines left hidden in the undergrowth, in defilade behind some buildings or otherwise out of line of sight that are only going to pop up at short range.

So a key element here is going to be finding the right balance between maintaining a good stand-off distance to mitigate the enemy AT threat to the Marders and closing in to get better spots and more effective fire.

That’s complicated by the terrain. Coming at Delta from Charlie, the surrounding fields and the Delta orchard are all slightly lower than the compound itself, which means that the closer I get, the more I get under the crest of the objective area and the worse my fields of fire get. It’s all dead ground- a covered approach, yes, but one which doesn’t offer good opportunities for fire.

In the end, I’ve decided to leave a fire support element at Charlie- the sniper team should be able to contribute from the top of the Charlie tower- and push everything else down the Highway. The Highway embankment is slightly raised, so it’s a good fire position, and there’s some cover and concealment on the other side of the ditch past the Charlie compound that will make for a good infantry jumping off point. The plan is to attack Delta’s closest corner, which should allow me to dominate the two front sides and give me the opportunity to swing left or right as the situation dictates.

The Attack

The Marders are already doing good work. The first spot actually came from Marder C, which identified a team of Marines in front of building D2 after one of them took a potshot at the TC of Marder B coming up alongside. It quickly returned fire, though it’s hard to tell how effective it was.

There’s more fire as everyone moves into position. Marder A rolls forward to kick out the platoon HQ and the snipers, taking a few dings to the turret and reflexively popping smoke. More enemy contacts start to accumulate. One of the SMAW teams is on top of D2, there’s another infantry team on the corner by D10.

Seeing as though I have some smoke cover, I decide to take advantage and punch the highway. Marder A crosses the bridge downstream and slews to cover Marder B, which follows up and kicks 2nd section out on the close side of the bridge so they can get across the ditch to their right and then into a small orchard.

The D2 SMAW misses short with a rocket and I respond by returning fire with Marders A, B and D. The sniper with the G82 is faster off the mark though and manages to take out the actual SMAW gunner with a Raufoss round before the building starts to come apart under torrents of 20mm fire.

At the same time, 3rd section has been hanging out in the ditch next to Charlie taking the occasional shot from the D10 contact and generally not doing much, so I decide to bring them back to their Marder and remount them so I regain some flexibility. More focused on coordinating outgoing fire and making sure the Marders don’t crash into each other, I gave 3rd the orders to run back across the bridge instead of using the ditch and their MG4 gunner gets killed by a lucky shot.

By now I have Marders A, B and D on overwatch up on the highway, the HQ section and the snipers set up in Charlie and 2nd and 4th sections across the ditch. I’m reasonably confident that they can push across the ploughed field there to the corner of the Delta orchard. The dead ground and foliage mean it’s probably safe, barring freak LOS. But I also want to get some firepower forward.

The roof of D2 has collapsed, so the SMAW in that position is at least on the ground floor with poor line of sight if not out of action. Bearing that in mind, I decide to bumrush 3rd Section down the track from Charlie in their Marder. That way I’ll have Marder C right up in the enemy’s face and a solid foothold on the corner I can feed the other dismounts into.

It is different risk though. A fire team from 4th running across open ground is a lot more vulnerable to small arms fire… Marder C doesn’t need to worry about small arms, but the Marines carry plenty of light AT weapons that could ruin my day. So when I make a move, I make sure to open up on all the enemy positions and try to keep their heads down.

The Marines near D10 brave all the incoming suppressive fire to get their AT4 off, but it falls short in the open field and Marder C gets away with it. 3rd Section pile out. 4th starts running across to join them. There isn’t any more incoming fire, but 2nd spot the other Marine SMAW team up on D8.

It’s pretty well screened there from most of the Panzergrenadiers by buildings D2 and D3. In a sense that’s good news because it’s not currently shooting at me. On the other hand, I’m inevitably going to be exposed to that position at some point and now at much closer range, where the Marines’ fire is likely to be more effective.

I also have to factor in the other SMAW team from D2, which may well still be in the fight.

The solution is, of course, 20mm cannon fire. While the dismounts consolidate on the orchard corner, the Marders get stuck in. Marder C edges right while Marder D crosses the ditch to come up on the other flank and between them they bring Building D2 down. Marder B, now carrying the remounted HQ team, can just about draw line of sight to D8’s roof from the highway and keeps some suppressive fire up.

That doesn’t stop one of the Marines tagging 3rd section’s leader as the dismounts start to probe forward, but retribution is swift and decisive. At least one man from the SMAW team is killed and the D8 roof collapses, but I still decide to shift my main effort left a little and approach the compound with my dismounts safe behind the bulk of building D3.

After a few minutes, I’ve got all the infantry except the sniper team up to the Delta compound wall near D3 and the ruins of D2. Marders B, C and D are about 75m behind them, spread out so they can hopefully react quickly to any further contacts. Marder A is way back on the highway providing some more general overwatch.

Clearing Delta

From here, the plan is to occupy Building D3. This should uncover any Marine teams deeper inside the compound: once they’re revealed, the Marders can muscle in to blow them away.

There’s still a little fire from the D10 corner as I get everything into position. I know there are Marines there and I’ve been suppressing them on and off without knowing if I’m achieving anything. It’s not until Marder B comes up in the centre and gets a better angle that they’re snuffed out.

The Panzergrenadiers take another casualty as they storm into D3- not inside the building, but outside it as a pixeltruppen corner-posting on the left side gets shot. The other half of the D8 SMAW team has obviously survived, but there’s also more fire coming through the keyhole between D8 and D9.

The dismounts in D3 return fire, but the SMAW gunner is more interested in Marder C, which it’s spotted advancing. The Marine gets a rocket off, but this finds an intervening tree instead of the Marder’s hull. A lucky escape there… Marder C quickly blasts the offending Marine.

There’s definitely another team of Marines on the far side of the compound though. 2nd and 4th sections, in and around D3, can’t get a good angle on them and lose a man on the ground floor to a 40mm grenade. They’re backed up by Marder B to their right, but the vehicle can’t get a good line on the enemy thanks to building D9. Marder D on the left can’t help either, but 3rd section is approaching the enemy’s old D10 corner position without any issues, so I send Marder C to back them up and enfilade the compound edge.

The Marder crushes through the compound wall and hoses the Marines down, wiping them out. 3rd Section start to flank around the edge of Delta to find more targets- there should be one left- and they come under fire from the Marine HQ team hiding in the woods behind D8. Marder C makes short work of them too and, after another turn to confirm the compound is clear, it’s time to ceasefire.

Endex

All 19 Marines are out of action, in exchange for only 4 of the Panzergrenadiers. That still amounts to 17% of the dismounts because there are only 24 of them, but it’s still a very strong performance. The Panzergrenadiers go right to the top of the scoreboard with 962 out of 1000 points. They also managed the second fastest time after the Uncons, with only 26 minutes from first contact to ceasefire.

That’s not too surprising- in QB points terms they’re the 4th most expensive platoon in our lineup- but I also think they got pretty lucky. I was pushing in very aggressively with the Marders and there were at least two or three occasions where they were saved from accurate AT shots by Combat Mission’s incredibly resilient tree trunks. Losing a single vehicle would have torpedoed their score in an instant.

Despite that, I’m not sure I would have done things all that differently. The Marders were the star of the show. They not only racked up 15 of the 19 kills, but were able to spot and engage targets on their town: it wasn’t all just area fire. That’s primarily due to their thermals, which highlights the need to have effective sensors to go along with firepower. The Syrian Airborne BMP-3s can absolutely put more firepower out than the Marders, but they never actually saw the enemy in their run, I was just directing them to blast specific areas and that’s considerably less effective.

The 20mm cannon in particular was very good at keeping the Marine’s heads-down, chewing them up and grinding their positions to dust. That may be to do with the way high rates of fire work inside Combat Mission’s engine. And it may not be that realistic: more sensible actual Marder gunners might be more inclined to use a lower rate of fire or rapid single shots to engage the kind of targets they get in this scenario. But on the other hand, the TacAI did stick to short bursts and although I was worried about maybe running out of ammunition if I went too hard, the Marders had plenty of 20mm HE left at the end. They could easily go again.

They were a little eager to use the MILAN- Marder B fired off all its missiles- but that’s CM for you.

Turning to the dismounts… I don’t feel like there’s that much to say. They did exactly what I needed them to do, which was to screen the Marders and spot targets for them. A few casualties here and there are pretty much inevitable in this kind of fighting, they hit a bit harder because of the low section size but apart from that I don’t think the TOE let them down at all. They had everything they needed to do their job.

Overall, this was a very straightforward run. Find enemy, close with enemy, destroy enemy, no notes really. Realistically that’s a strong sign that Panzergrenadier platoons are a solid, high end unit. There’s always more to talk about when everything goes wrong.

Speaking of everything going wrong, Group 3 is up next and we have three very different contenders. We have US Marines in AAVs, Syrians in BTRs and Canadians in Nyala MRAPs… all of which have their own vulnerabilities. As ever, we are going to get to them all eventually, so it’ll be interesting to see what you guys pick. I’ll leave a link to the poll down below when that goes live.

A really good showing from the Marders, though I can’t believe we got halfway through the Platoon Patrol before getting to see some automatic cannon fire. If you’d like to see these videos early and support the channel you can do so via Patreon and Youtube memberships. Whether you do or not, thanks for watching and I’ll catch you in the next one.