Iron Will – Anti Tank Tactics?

Hi there,

Iron will is more or less a support doctrine and like you pointed out, early armor really can be painful when you play it but… You have some tank counters like panzerfaust truck and you can also build russian tanks really early in the game (from mechanized). If you can survive the mid game, you can just call Tiger to finish enemy armor off.

As to say about counter arty. IW is the most skill intensive doctrine and it requires you to split your troops and utilize your own heavy artillery to fight it. One way to counter arty is simply to dodge it. Your troops are super cheap to reinforce so all you have to care is to move Reserve truppen along your offensive and reinforce squads without having to retreat. Basicly, arty hits you, reinforce and press on. By the time enemy has multiple arty pieces, you should have your own, which is far more powerful than what Zis-3 can do.

All to say, IW really struggles against early LVs/Tanks, but most importantly mortars and snipers.

You’ll see it the more you play the doctrine.
I tried to help you with countering tanks/arty, but countering mortars and early snipers is really painful for IW and it’s one of the reasons it’s considered more of a support doctrine.

Strategies I’d recommend is spending your first 2 command points on sniper call-in (2 gebirgsjaeger), so you can keep up the moment you gain in the early game.
Then you spend your points for unlocking t-34 in mechanized truck. Get those ASAP or get Suczkas (the 76 mm TD). You need either of them to properly fight tanks mid-game. Suczka is better at fighting tanks than t-34, but t-34 allows you to kill infantry as well as medium tanks. Pick whatever suits the situation.

After you unlock t-34 go for unlocking pak40 emplcament and artillery. Your pak40 has a really long range and can easily kill enemy tanks, but remember, it cannot rotate.
Your arty is one of the strongest in the game, so the quicker you get it, the more painful it’s gonna be for enemy!
After that you can pick whatever is needed or just floats your boat.

If you need any more help, hit me up on discord, my name is GrayWolf 😉

Hello,

I am the friend that Aydin speaks of that is having trouble with counter artillery. To go through what I have been doing, I typically produce pak 40s as AT and generally set them up with a leig as a early artillery and AT defense line. The AT and defense line holds up well against counter soviet armor and infantry. However usually halfway through the match, the enemy has the zi3’s up and running against my defense line and start bombing it with the artillery ability. What I tired doing as a counter was producing LEHF18’s to start counterbarraging their artillery. However, it seemed like my counterbarrrages weren’t doing much because after 4 barrages on the exact same zi3 with 2 LEHF18’s, in a short period of time, their artillery was still intact. I know it is not an issue of misplaced shots because I launch the barrages when I see the zi3 on the map due to artillery alerts. I read on some normal game mode forums that the LEHF18 has a really wide spread of shots when it reaches a certain range and I was wondering if you had any info on that. I want to keep my partner primarily as a assault class army so that way we are both not lacking in infantry or armor to move up on cleared victory points. I understand that there are ways to avoid artillery with a mobile defense line, but it is much more difficult to move pack40s and Leig’s in time. Any advice would be great.

Thank you

The Pak you get is very powerful but as you pointed out the fact it can’t turn means it can’t solve all your issues. While panzerfausts are greatly useful against the heavier armour I would suggest the SU-85, an often overlooked unit that Iron Will has access to. Also, early game you might get some use out of the little AT gun you can build.

If the enemy is barraging your HQ, I suggest using the medic’s retreat point ability and keeping your units away from the HQ.

I agree that wunderwaffe would be good for a more normal doctrine although luftwaffe is also doable, although it trades off things like getting a king tiger for more air based abilities, so it can very much depend on the map.

If you want the most detailed advice I can provide, I suggest https://wikingeretow.com/wikingerforum/topic/if-you-need-advice-or-wonder-what-went-wrong-replay-review/

In my eyes the Iron Will Doctrine is very strong in the beginning and quite strong when fully developed.

IW gives you 2 unique benefits in early game:

1. Panzerfaust truck is very helpful and a kinda cheap but powerfull anti tank solution. It comes out fast enough to counter the first vehicles…. and it can still counter big vehicles in close combat – of course that means having an ambush and/or urban map
2. On big maps IW has the big advantage that all of the Freiwilligen appear in trucks. Your infantry can rush forward while your friend takes the rear without any losses or fight. Of course you will have to retreat and will loose some infantry, but you have the advantage of having important ressources at a very early time.
   Also, if you compare IW early game to e.g. Wunder early game, the frontline will be much closer to your enemy.

A general tip for playing Iron Will: don’t be static – push – retreat – push…. and get a medic quite close to the front (in security of course), set it as a retreat point and gather some Ersatztruppen there as well.

Good luck and let us know if you had sucess or other ideas.