I should say that the game is quite a bit easier to play for the Germans, mostly by virtue of the scenarios being very heavily balanced in their favour. The Russians are still quite merciless and really do try, but I think if you have a good understanding of basic offensive tactics, you will not have much trouble crushing them unless you set up a handicap in the scenario settings or put a short time-limit for battles that will prevent you from crushing them too early on. It's probably the first game of this type I've played where the attacking side is substantially easier to play than the defenders. Some credit here of course goes to the fact that it's easy to set up very effective line formations and both the "attack" and "take cover" orders get the unit AI to do nifty things (units ordered to "attack" a position don't do a "human wave", but do a good job of finding their own firing position and moving forward or even back as necessary). The defensive AI's main problem that I found is that it is tragically stubborn. In the early phases of operations, Russians try to entrench themselves on the edges of woods and fields, in relatively open ground. Taking a company of regular infantry with a few AT guns and a couple of T-34s and trying to defend relatively open ground with it against a tank-reinforced Panzergrenadier company has the results you'd expect in reality. Not that it's unrealistic, but after you outright destroy a couple of enemy platoons early in the battle you do end up with near-unstoppable initiative. The Russian AI's other problem that it constantly tries to counter-attack. It has managed to surprise me a couple of times by having its T-34s pop up where I don't expect them, but when they try to pop a counterattack on a well-organized formation of PZIV's, they're really pretty hopeless. One of the really interesting things with armor vs. armor combat in this game, I find, is the effect of scoring hits. Even if a hit on a tank doesn't actually damage it or wound the crew, it will usually cause it to momentarily stop shooting and/or moving. This makes it very difficult for T-34s because German guns may not be great at outright killing them, but they are very good at hitting them. As long as the panzers keep a tight formation, they can deliver a real volume of fire on a T-34 and stun it quickly. Which usually turns into a dead T-34 before it can recover from the hits and shoot back effectively.
On the other hand I can't crack how to really win for the Russians, for the very same reasons: the Germans have a decisive advantage in their units. I played 3 operations for the Russians so far. The two Taranovka scenarios resulted in a minor defeat and a relatively favourable draw for me. The long Sokolovo scenario though... I'm just being crushed in, however I try. The problem is that I'm facing a panzergrenadier company that is chock-full of halftracks, has a couple of tank platoons, and even a StuG embedded with one of its infantry platoons. What I have is a company of regular infantry with six 76mm AT guns and a couple of 45mm guns. The best I've done so far is manage to take down two tanks and a few halftracks with them, even if I force the enemy to fight on the streets of a village, before my whole company is outright destroyed. The Russians' one advantage is in close-quarter infantry combat. They have very good automatic weapons in their infantry units. This game does a great job of modeling the difference between automatic and non-automatic weapons - firefights with mostly riflemen vs. riflemen generally can last a long time and become real stalemates between squads. Throw an MG or an SMG squad in, and things turn extremely deadly, extremely fast. Sadly for the Russians, however, the real source of automatic fire from the germans isn't the infantry but the halftracks and tanks. But how do I fight these tanks?
Anyone have any tips for setting up AT ambushes?
