[updated 19 July 2023]
Theater of War Mission Pack: The Southern Fronts
Mission: Spring Rasputitsa
This is a solo mission in which you try to kill 9 tanks that are stuck in the mud all around the map. Each tank is guarded by a strong infantry force including HMGs. The tanks lie in a lightly wooded area just outside the front entrance to your base. The big problem you face is that, if you simply go directly N out of your base and try to kill the tanks, they swivel their turrets and do squadwipes on you, or their extremely well armed infantry run up and do squadwipes on you—more often both. Another problem is that your own selection of units is very limited. The only vehicle you can bring in is a scout car, and you can’t bring in more Zis 76mm field guns, though you start with one. There’s one more problem: within minutes of the mission start, the tanks will start coming unstuck and driving off the map to the E. If you’re a newb player, you may be thinking wtf? and want to rage-quit. But there is a way to win this.
At the start, put one of your conscript squads in the scout car; car and squad go to cap the muni point at the SW corner of the map. One of your Guards Rifle squads, upgraded with DP28s when able, should go to the territory point just W of your base.
Bring in three snipers. Bring the scout car and conscripts back to the territory point just W of your base when they are finished point-capping. They and the GR squad can kill the panzergren and gren squads that will attack that point.
When that skirmish is done, upgrade another of your Guards Rifle squads with DP-28s, and assemble your whole force at the E end of your base. Send your entire force out the E side of your base, and then N about 15 meters, until at least one or two German infantry (grens, panzergrens, HMGs, pios) are visible, but not so far that you can see any German tanks (see image below). Stand in cover and shoot at the German squads. More German squads will arrive (a scary amount of them), but they have no chance against your three sniper units. The #1 priority for your sniper units should be German HMG crews.
At some point you should be able to use one of your conscript units to crew one of the decrewed German MG42s or MG34s, to start suppressing German infantry. Eventually you will wipe every German unit in sight, and can proceed another 15m or so to the N. You will now see a couple of stuck tanks, with more infantry. Kill the infantry, then use your field gun to kill the two stuck tanks.
Once you’ve killed those tanks and their supporting infantry, use your GR squads and conscripts to recover as many Panzerbuchse AT rifles as you can from the area, plus at least one more MG42/34ย (don’t waste manpower points bringing in a Maxim). Move asap down to the territory point in the small canyon or gully at the E edge of the map. Set up your force in and around the territory point, facing W, to await other tanks as they come unstuck elsewhere and try to flee off the map through that gully. (Delays between tank escape attempts can be long-ish—you can shorten by sending units to spot the tanks.) You should have at least two captured MG42/34s, one on each side of the gully (HMGs no longer suppress very well in COH2). Keep bringing in GR squads and conscripts, and as much as possible scrounge the Panzerbuchses instead of spending muni points on PTRS upgrades. Try to have at least two Guards Rifle squads upgraded with DP-28s, which allow you to use one of the Russian superpowers, the Button Vehicle function, slowing tanks so they can’t get past you before you kill them. Over time, you should build up a fairly large force of mostly GR squads, a couple of conscripts for reinforcing and scrounging dropped German weapons (and AT-nading tanks, as a last resort), and your 76mm Zis field gun. The tanks will come, usually 1 to 3 at a time. Initially you might struggle to kill them quickly, but by tank #9, your full pop-cap force and high vetting should ensure swift kills.
Occasionally, the German tanks start coming unstuck before you can fight your way down to the gully and set up to stop them. Nothing to do but start over in such cases.
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