Tank Tactics in Iron Front Liberation 1944 - Turret Down!

That hill in front of your tank could be the dividing line between life and death.

One of the major surprises of Iron Front Liberation 1944 is a very decent armored warfare experience. It's time to get real with your tactics, folks!



Simulation-wise, Iron Front Liberation 1944 (IFL44 from here) is not Steel Fury or Steel Beasts but it offers some very solid tank warfare elements. Modelling of armor thickness, angle of impact of shells, damage to different parts of the tank and physics-based ballistics (just to mention a few) are a zillion times better than in the stock ArmA 2.

That being said, tank battles in IFL44 tend to be protracted affairs devoid of that "one-hit-instant-death" so frequent in modern day armored warfare. Yeah, specially at long ranges, you can get your tank hit many times seemingly without damage. This doesn't mean that it is OK to sit at a single spot of a battle position and endure 10+ hits just because your tank didn't blow up.

Some tanks in IFL44 are heavily armored and can stand multiple hits from long ranges. One tactic that I'm not particularly fond of is some sort of dumb cousin of "recon by fire": crest a ridge, scan for targets while waiting until somebody shoots at me. A visual on a target or an incoming shell, whatever comes first ...  If the latter happens, the puff of smoke generated by an enemy tank gun is easily recognizable from afar. Yes, my tank's crew is not so thrilled about it ...

When it comes to the tactical use of hills by tanks, apart from the very popular and well known "hull down" position (keep the hull of the tank hidden from enemy targeting and observation) there is also the forgotten child of tactical armored warfare, "turret down" (keep the whole tank, hull and turret hidden from enemy targeting and observation). I confess to not being such a big fan of it but I blame everything on modern tank sensors: you can go and play Steel Beasts and you will see that many modern tanks in "turret down" position can't use its powerful IR imaging sensors to observe the enemy from the hill (the IR sensor and optics are in the middle of the turret).

But now that I am playing with WWII-era tanks, where my commander's binoculars are almost as good as the gunsight optics, "turret down" makes a lot of sense.

The view from the commander's hatch. The view is narrow and from the level of the turret. There is a very gentle slope ahead and there is an enemy tank platoon on the other side.

The same situation from the above image, but now seen from the main gun's optics.

If you press the "z" key while playing as a commander of a tank, your character will "unbutton" (open the hatch of the tank and stand on the commanders seat, an external view of this is in the first screenshot of this entry and in the screenshot below). From this unbuttoned position, the commander can see the enemy tanks (below the yellow arrow) on the other side of the slope while his own tank is completely concealed by the hill. 

An external view of an unbuttoned tank. The commander's point of view is higher to enough to see the enemy that remains out of sight for the rest of the tank crew. In this case, the enemy is at a very short range but as a commander you can use your binoculars (press the letter "b") for longer range observation.

Acquiring the enemy without being observed is a huge advantage. Don't squander it by driving through the crest, guns blazing. A thin silhouette is a valid target ... Remember that even AP shells drop a bit and that with a bit of practice you can have the shells arching over the hill. In this image, an enemy T-34 is hit repeatedly without any chance to fire back. 

Where did my target go? Oh, wait ... :)

Cheers,