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russian armor

how to counter Priest howitzer?

20 Aug 2015, 14:57 PM
#1
avatar of Ninius

Posts: 24

Hi all , i am having trouble countering Priest howitzer in 1v1 so pls share your thoughts.
I find it really hard to counter because of its mobility, i tried Close-air support but they can move away easy. I tried some fast pushes with tanks, but they hide them behind at guns, and tank traps.
20 Aug 2015, 15:11 PM
#2
avatar of Stormless
Senior Caster Badge

Posts: 762 | Subs: 4

Interesting question.

I could put forward some suggestions and you can reject or try them out. Firstly, regardless of any faction or commander. Listen and try to predict when artillery is going to fire. Having a rough idea of when it's coming or the spots it will aim for is going to save you a lot of units.

What I would have to say is that the Priest is a large fuel investment for the USF. If he has tanks on the field and the priest, then he's done very well and you really should be looking into aircraft to remove this. If he has gone straight into the priest with little or no tanks. You should be able to move in and take this out with little stress. AT guns and USF infantry are no match for the later game vehicles and infantry of the Axis. Running a pioneer and a tank along the edge of the map and into enemy territory can yield excellent results though you might lose your tank.

Aircraft really seems to be your best bet with this. The JU-87 from CAS or even the longer JU-87 from Lightning War, Blitzkrieg does well at taking it down or at least scattering enemy forces so that you can run a tank in and get the final kill.

With OKW I think it's a LOT more difficult to remove this unit from game play however there are some really sneaky ways you can do this using either the Luchs or JP4. Both of these units gain a stealth ability at vet2 which you can toggle. A stealth Luchs can get right into the enemy base unnoticed and deal a crushing blow to USF artillery
20 Aug 2015, 15:17 PM
#3
avatar of __deleted__

Posts: 830

I like to use the tactic that the Russians used in Stalingrad, they called it 'Hugging the Germans'. Which meant that the Russians stayed relatively close to the Germans lines, rendering their artillery and air support pretty much useless.

Now if you face the Priest, you can obviously hear it fire, when you are closer to your enemies lines, you can hear it far better. This will give you ample time to move some units, which will mostly be paks, mortars or mgs since they always fire at such a thing.

When you keep hugging his troops, this will also mean that it will become a 'danger close' situation most of the time, which means he will soft retreat units. As soon as you see a soft retreat of let's say 2 or 3 units that are still fully capable of fighting on, this means he will fire the damned priest. If you overrun his lines and he full retreats units and you hear it firing, move everything once again. If he scouts with a lousy unit and only pokes, you can bet your ass he will fire it.

The best moment for a stuka dive bomb, or an at strafe, is when you are attacking. Just make a push, right before you push use the recon run, engage the enemy and at the same time, strafe or bomb the priest. This most of the time works, since most of the playerbase has average micro at best. If this doesn't work, engage the enemy again and keep him occupied. In the meanwhile have a tank ready to make a deep flanking maneuver that will strike his priest.

Edit:

Also have your defenses in layers (this will make dislodging it with one arty strike far from achievable), one mg42 covering a more forward mg42. A pak in the back with room to maneuver, a mortar that is behind some kind of shot blocker, let's say a house or a thick tree. Arty is dodgy and will mostly either miss or hit anything that is in front of the unit
20 Aug 2015, 18:04 PM
#4
avatar of Ninius

Posts: 24

thanks guys! i will try out your suggestions for sure :)
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