Alternatives to the SU-85

Jump back to quoted post6 Apr 2014, 08:25 AMMarcoRossolini

Hey everyone, just had a 3v3 and whilst none of us were particularly pro I did see a pretty interesting Soviet tank combination in the form of mass T-34/76s (there had to be about 8 of them and some points) and then 2 IS-2s and later on 1 ISU to back it all up.

Against that was pitted at various points 3 Panthers + Infantry, 2 Tigers and a few other things.

This combination effortlessly beat just about everything there was, there were tons of destroyed T-34s but the ISs rolled around wrecking everything (rare in a 3v3 mind you)

This game got me thinking, what alternatives to blind SU-85 spam (which I saw in another 4v4 earlier) have people seen out there? They don't neccesarily have to be foolproof but have they been successful?

Jump back to quoted post6 Apr 2014, 12:22 PMKronosaur0s

Unbeatable, if Elefant is used good.

Jump back to quoted post6 Apr 2014, 16:19 PMPorygon

Elefant is a joke, you just need some cons dancing in front of his LOS, wasting his shells and spotting scope.

Jump back to quoted post6 Apr 2014, 16:20 PMJinseual

The funny thing about the Elefant is that it's so slow and cannot fire targets from one side of the map to another like some people think. I had a 2v2 game yesterday in Rivercrossings. In this game as soon as I get my Elefant out my opponent shifts his tanks to another part of the map where the Elefant is not present. He also attacks full on with infantry on the side where the Elefant is while attacking the other side with mass tanks. Everytime I move my Elefant to react to the tanks on the other side he moves his tanks back to where the Elefant just left to harass my infantry.

The Soviet tanks can shift axis of attack a lot faster than the Elefant could react and the Soviets have many good anti infantry capabilities that the Elefant couldn't remove. So even though the Elefant is nearly invincible against Soviet armor, it's a slow cumbersome unit that's inaccurate, cannot kill infantry, consumes a lot of popcap, and has a low rate of fire.

Jump back to quoted post6 Apr 2014, 17:03 PMwongtp

think about this way, what is then stopping ur tanks from smacking the shit out of his infantry, a simple ostwind and a couple of mg42s + gren support is a great combination, have your mate fortify the other side with panthers and mines to prevent a flank on ur elefant.

unless ur team have been taking major tank losses prior to ur elefant and you are counting on the elefant alone for anti tank duties, then i suggest more work on keeping german armour alive or better unit combinations, paks and pgren schrecks for su85 spammers, p4/panther/stugs for t34 spammers.

so to shit on ur tanks moving to shit on his infantry, he has to move his tanks in range of ur elefant. which by then, you can shit on their tanks with the elefants and now, nothing short of a nuke can stop elefants from ravaging soviet armoured lines.

an elefant gives major strategic initiative, same with the isu152, though the latter can be more or less countered by well utilized non doctrinal panthers.