Warhammer 40K Imperial Guard force to beat an Armored Brigade Combat Team

[ATP]

That's the sort of dishonesty that is making me tired of this. You made a claim simply to justify an outcome you find favorable. All I've asked is that you back it up. Show me a reference to a tank computer , a slide rule, anything to justify you asspulled claim a Leman Russ could crunch the trajectory numbers. And you've done nothing but Dodge.

I wish you the best Jager but I'm done. I no longer believe anything of value can come out of continuing.

You are right about imperials being unable to target anything out of sight.When USA would have drones for that.
Which mean,that american M109 would destroy Basilisks,and then wipe out infrantry heavy weapons squads.
Abrams could go in night and finish off rest.
Leaving Leman Russ tanks to AT missiles.I doubt,that Leman Russ could detect Javelin team from 3-4km.

It would be one-side massacre till Mechanicum or Astartes come.

P.S dude with Vox is asking for sniper bullet.

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

You are right about imperials being unable to target anything out of sight.When USA would have drones for that.
Which mean,that american M109 would destroy Basilisks,and then wipe out infrantry heavy weapons squads.
Abrams could go in night and finish off rest.
Leaving Leman Russ tanks to AT missiles.I doubt,that Leman Russ could detect Javelin team from 3-4km.

It would be one-side massacre till Mechanicum or Astartes come.

P.S dude with Vox is asking for sniper bullet.

Astartes would be interesting since they're supposed to fight more like the American brigade in the first with rapid thrusts. Not to mention the augmented, superhuman encased in power armor.

And I'd agree in a "real" fight the use of drones would prove devastating to the IG along with American airpower in general which can provide CAS and deliver precision bombing the Guard could only dream about. Hell the Marauder, the Imperial premier bomber, apparently tops out at 12,000 lbs of ordinance compare that to the venerable B-52 which can carry up to 70,000 lbs.

Marauder Bomber - Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum

wh40k.lexicanum.com

Boeing B-52 Stratofortress - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But sadly the the fight is "fixed" somewhat to just be a Brigade in isolation which likely means things like drones wouldn't be allowed for them.

 

[ATP]

Astartes would be interesting since they're supposed to fight more like the American brigade in the first with rapid thrusts. Not to mention the augmented, superhuman encased in power armor.

And I'd agree in a "real" fight the use of drones would prove devastating to the IG along with American airpower in general which can provide CAS and deliver precision bombing the Guard could only dream about. Hell the Marauder, the Imperial premier bomber, apparently tops out at 12,000 lbs of ordinance compare that to the venerable B-52 which can carry up to 70,000 lbs.

Marauder Bomber - Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum

wh40k.lexicanum.com

Boeing B-52 Stratofortress - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But sadly the the fight is "fixed" somewhat to just be a Brigade in isolation which likely means things like drones wouldn't be allowed for them.

Then,with M109 having better range,they still could destroy front units of IG with inpunity.But not enemy artillery.
In that case,IG would still lost,but after destroing part of american brigade.

 

[JagerIV]

You are right about imperials being unable to target anything out of sight.When USA would have drones for that.
Which mean,that american M109 would destroy Basilisks,and then wipe out infrantry heavy weapons squads.
Abrams could go in night and finish off rest.
Leaving Leman Russ tanks to AT missiles.I doubt,that Leman Russ could detect Javelin team from 3-4km.

It would be one-side massacre till Mechanicum or Astartes come.

P.S dude with Vox is asking for sniper bullet.

Eh, not quite. Looking around to see if there was an easily google-able direct reference to a tank's targeting computer, and they do have augers, auspex, and/or scanners. Reading though, its not clear to me exactly how much these are different things, or general terms for sensors in general. Also, when given any sort of hard stats, they generally seem to be for personal equipment, probably drawn from the 40k RPG, not vehicle grade equipment.

You also have signum's and Targeter's, which is more or less what were talking about here, but there generally only expicitly listed when carried by infantry, so vehicles may or may not have them as well. And as soft SF, the exact workings of any of them are fairly vague.

Plus we do have the more unique ways the Imperium deals with this these things, namely biotics and psykers. Biotics deserve at least some consideration, due to their relative commonness:

"Personnel in practically all branches of the Imperium use bionics in some capacity. In most Imperial Guard Regiments, only officers will have access to bionic equipment. On the other hand, there are a few regiments where virtually every soldier is bionically enhanced."

It is pretty common for models and pictures to show officers with one eye replaced with some sort so sensor, though quick google didn't turn up the specific model, despite how common it seems.

"Such is the level of technology in certain parts of the Imperium that bionic senses can replace eyes, ears, noses, and even touch and taste. More advanced bionic senses can even produce effects of synaesthesia.[Needs Citation]

Bionic eyes can increase a subject's visual spectrum, allowing the ability to see heat, energies, etc., as well as incorporating targeters and resistance to the effects of blinding flashes. The addition of digi-weapons into bionic eyes is also not unknown for high-ranking individuals.[1]

Bionic hearing can improve normal hearing to the point where the user can hear living creatures breathing, hearts beating, etc."

This red eye thing shows up a lot in the art.​

It would seem very in line with 40k to, rather than to put a targeting computer in a tank, to instead put a targeting computer in the gunners head. If the gunners worth of one at least, which suggests higher quality troops. Though its also somewhat vague of where Leman Rus crewmembers sit on the imperial guard importance of equipment hierarchy.

Aircraft and drones are one of those things I was going a bit back and forth on. On the one hand, the US military is more or less designed to operate with some airborne presence, but on the other hand considering air and ground in parrel dramatically complicates an already complicated situation. And forces a conversation on a whole other bunch of questions, such as how effective arial surveillance is (We have a lot of it over the Russians and Taliban, and while it wasn't fun for them, didn't result in instant death either) and how good Imperial AA is, considering a whole nother class of equipment.

Air is especially trickly because that's getting into imperial navy territory, an area of particular inconsistency: its unambigously high tech, and very powerful high tech, necesary to the setting. And since its so detached from real life experience, or real physics, that concretely translating that is difficult. So I wanted to minimize those considerations.

Still, it does seem like the imperial guard vehicles do have some sensors/augers which would allow them to perform conventional counter battery operations. Unfortunately, it looks like when a book says auger/auspex/scanner it could mean near literally anything:

"These scanners can include radar, infrared detection, ultraviolet detection, lidar, chemical assays, sonar, spectroscopy, and other technologies, all intended to detect and analyses sources of energy and other phenomenon on planets or in the void of space."

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

Then,with M109 having better range,they still could destroy front units of IG with inpunity.But not enemy artillery.
In that case,IG would still lost,but after destroing part of american brigade.

Since the question was pose, there's evidence Imperium based eye implants are no better, and in one officer's opinion somehow worse, than the good old Mark I eyeball.

They played out in a long, uneven line. In the command seat of the Heart, Kleopas checked the readings of his auspex, glowing pale yellow in the half-light of the locked down turret, against the eyeball view through his prismatic up-scope. He used his good right eye for this, not his augmetic implant, an affectation his crew often joked about.

We even get a reference to him using the tank auspex which he wants to confirm with said visual view via a tank parascope. So evidence suggests an Auspex is pretty limited.

 

[JagerIV]

Part of my project to see if what makes sense in my head makes sense on the page.

Besides double checking to make sure my image uploading still works, I figured it be good to overlay over some real terrain, to maintain some persective.

Ideal terrain to run my map testing on seemed to be Colorado City (Texas) to Dyess air force base. This gives a range of about 100 km, good range for an overland advance for a meeting.

My idea then is the Guard force gets dropped just outside Colorado city, a tiny place of 4,000 people. But, it has a small civilian airport, is on rout 20, and being a 100 km out from US forces in Abilene, a relatively safe drop zone.

Guard forces get dropped off there, and then their goal is to keep Rout 20 blocked, defeat local forces (an Armored Brigade), and advance to Dyess Air Force base, to deny it to the Americans and seize it as a staging area for reinforcements and building part of the chain to eventually put Fort Worth/Dallas under siege.

In the middle is Sweetwater, a town of roughly 10,000, located 50 km away from each on a little outcropping of hills that puts it a bit higher and the terrain a bit rougher than otherwise.

Area in general is flatish, rolling hills, with a good amount of shrubbery: not a huge amount of cover, but fair bit of concealment.

Americans want to at a minimum keep the Guard away from the air force base, as far as possible but at least out of artillery fire so it can be used, drive the Imperials off Rout 20 to keep East/West supply routs open, and Destroy the Imperial forces in the area.

This will give me a map to see if what makes sense in my head still makes sense on paper. And that my uploads work.

 

[ATP]

Eh, not quite. Looking around to see if there was an easily google-able direct reference to a tank's targeting computer, and they do have augers, auspex, and/or scanners. Reading though, its not clear to me exactly how much these are different things, or general terms for sensors in general. Also, when given any sort of hard stats, they generally seem to be for personal equipment, probably drawn from the 40k RPG, not vehicle grade equipment.

You also have signum's and Targeter's, which is more or less what were talking about here, but there generally only expicitly listed when carried by infantry, so vehicles may or may not have them as well. And as soft SF, the exact workings of any of them are fairly vague.

Plus we do have the more unique ways the Imperium deals with this these things, namely biotics and psykers. Biotics deserve at least some consideration, due to their relative commonness:

"Personnel in practically all branches of the Imperium use bionics in some capacity. In most Imperial Guard Regiments, only officers will have access to bionic equipment. On the other hand, there are a few regiments where virtually every soldier is bionically enhanced."

It is pretty common for models and pictures to show officers with one eye replaced with some sort so sensor, though quick google didn't turn up the specific model, despite how common it seems.

"Such is the level of technology in certain parts of the Imperium that bionic senses can replace eyes, ears, noses, and even touch and taste. More advanced bionic senses can even produce effects of synaesthesia.[Needs Citation]

Bionic eyes can increase a subject's visual spectrum, allowing the ability to see heat, energies, etc., as well as incorporating targeters and resistance to the effects of blinding flashes. The addition of digi-weapons into bionic eyes is also not unknown for high-ranking individuals.[1]

Bionic hearing can improve normal hearing to the point where the user can hear living creatures breathing, hearts beating, etc."

This red eye thing shows up a lot in the art.​

It would seem very in line with 40k to, rather than to put a targeting computer in a tank, to instead put a targeting computer in the gunners head. If the gunners worth of one at least, which suggests higher quality troops. Though its also somewhat vague of where Leman Rus crewmembers sit on the imperial guard importance of equipment hierarchy.

Aircraft and drones are one of those things I was going a bit back and forth on. On the one hand, the US military is more or less designed to operate with some airborne presence, but on the other hand considering air and ground in parrel dramatically complicates an already complicated situation. And forces a conversation on a whole other bunch of questions, such as how effective arial surveillance is (We have a lot of it over the Russians and Taliban, and while it wasn't fun for them, didn't result in instant death either) and how good Imperial AA is, considering a whole nother class of equipment.

Air is especially trickly because that's getting into imperial navy territory, an area of particular inconsistency: its unambigously high tech, and very powerful high tech, necesary to the setting. And since its so detached from real life experience, or real physics, that concretely translating that is difficult. So I wanted to minimize those considerations.

Still, it does seem like the imperial guard vehicles do have some sensors/augers which would allow them to perform conventional counter battery operations. Unfortunately, it looks like when a book says auger/auspex/scanner it could mean near literally anything:

"These scanners can include radar, infrared detection, ultraviolet detection, lidar, chemical assays, sonar, spectroscopy, and other technologies, all intended to detect and analyses sources of energy and other phenomenon on planets or in the void of space."

When USA had artillery radar,which let them localize enemy battery after their first shot.So,IoM maybe could target USA,USA would target IG for sure.
Bionics - every american trooper could have night vision.

Since the question was pose, there's evidence Imperium based eye implants are no better, and in one officer's opinion somehow worse, than the good old Mark I eyeball.



We even get a reference to him using the tank auspex which he wants to confirm with said visual view via a tank parascope. So evidence suggests an Auspex is pretty limited.

Just so.

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

When USA had artillery radar,which let them localize enemy battery after their first shot.So,IoM maybe could target USA,USA would target IG for sure.

Actually its even worse than that. If the Imperials are relying on indirect bombardment as their primary line of defense, with everything else just being a delaying tactic, and are parking everything in the center of a giant square formation it wouldn't be hard to use a feint to force the Guard to reveal their positions then move up artillery to target and pummel those guns that just fired.

Further if this is taking place in Texas with a noticeable civilian population then the Guard have a whole another mess to deal with. I'm from Texas and I have two rifles plus three pistols, two semi-autos and a revolver, with a few hundred rounds of ammunition, mostly long rifle .22 I'll admit, and I not even really a "gun guy" or believe that I'm that particularly unique. So the Imperials are likely going to have to devote skullsweat and manpower ensuring the pissed off locals don't start taking pot shots at them or spend time and munitions killing everyone.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Further if this is taking place in Texas with a noticeable civilian population then the Guard have a whole another mess to deal with. I'm from Texas and I have two rifles plus three pistols, two semi-autos and a revolver, with a few hundred rounds of ammunition, mostly long rifle .22 I'll admit, and I not even really a "gun guy" or believe that I'm that particularly unique. So the Imperials are likely going to have to devote skullsweat and manpower ensuring the pissed off locals don't start taking pot shots at them or spend time and munitions killing everyone.

Outside the realm of the OP. Just Guard vs Brigade.

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

Outside the realm of the OP. Just Guard vs Brigade.

Possibly but I figured it would fall under environmental hazards.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Possibly but I figured it would fall under environmental hazards.

high velocity lead is not an 'environmental hazard'.

 

[bintananth]

high velocity lead is not an 'environmental hazard'.

It's a bit of a stretch ...

The gun-toting local civilians could be classified as "hazardous native fauna".

 

[JagerIV]

More experiments with drawing on maps, comparing two methods for the imperials to protect flanks.

First, the 20 km a side square idea, with the idea that all the ammo and supplies could be stored in the center and slowly moved forward, keeping the whole force together.

This is a permitter of 80 km. I think drawing it out it may be a bit too large and too small at the same time. Its not actually large enough to actually provide that much protection to logistical infrastructure, such as fuel, food, and supplies: artillery can still theoretically get reasonably close. A series of smaller, more spaced out fire bases would probably still be superior, even with imperial limits. Narrow the Colorado perimeter to 30 km ish, then spread the other 50 km across 5 other 10km perimeter strong points.

I also did a test of a more offensive, aggressive strategy of a purposeful deep thrust directly to the airbase. This requires either less well defended flanks or more flank protective forces, but not quite as much as I expected.

So, driving from Colorado to Dyess over a roughly 20 km front only requires about 200 km of flank. Which makes sense, but its still strange that a full length push only comes out to 2.5x as much flank protection. And with a driving forward push, enemy resources available for destructive flank attacks are minimized anyways.

I'm starting to lean more to an aggressive rather than defensive Imperial Strategy. Initially I was leaning to a slow and steady wearing down attack on the Brigade, but looking at this, a much more aggressive strategy might make sense: Chimera's are still quite speedy at 50-70 kmp, so full speed can theoretically close the full gap in 2-4 hours, though resistance would slow progress.

Leman Russ Tanks of course are much slower, in the 20-30km range, though if supporting dismounted infantry, that's more like 5-8 kmh, and those high values are pushing power walking/jogging speed, which would suggest lightly encumbered/fit troops. 20 kmh suggests Leman Russ could still cross the advance range in 4-5 hours, very doable in a day. 5 kmh suggests its 20 hours of travel, which gets back to slow rates of advance requiring 3-4 days.

I'm not quite sure how much offense bites into the Brigade's endurance.

 

[JagerIV]

Astartes would be interesting since they're supposed to fight more like the American brigade in the first with rapid thrusts. Not to mention the augmented, superhuman encased in power armor.

And I'd agree in a "real" fight the use of drones would prove devastating to the IG along with American airpower in general which can provide CAS and deliver precision bombing the Guard could only dream about. Hell the Marauder, the Imperial premier bomber, apparently tops out at 12,000 lbs of ordinance compare that to the venerable B-52 which can carry up to 70,000 lbs.

Marauder Bomber - Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum

wh40k.lexicanum.com

Boeing B-52 Stratofortress - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But sadly the the fight is "fixed" somewhat to just be a Brigade in isolation which likely means things like drones wouldn't be allowed for them.

Hm, I did say a brigade, so if there's organic drones to it, that should be good. Something like an RQ-20 seems like it might be available at a brigade level. It has very low speeds (about 60 kmh) and short range (15 km) That's very shootable, and you'd have fair casualties on overflights, which comes down to endurance questions. Wiki suggests they're deployed as a "battery" of three drones. Your likely to lose all of them on the first day unless fairly conservatively flown.

Hm, I wonder how deep the American munition reserves would reasonably be in general. US has 15 armored Brigades. The US seems to have roughly 1 million 155mm ammo in storage, so very crudely dividing that gives 66,666 rounds for the Brigade, or 3,700 rounds per gun. On the other hand, the other Brigades also have 155 so dividing it evenly between brigades, with 1/3 to infantry brigades, lowers the amount of shells available for the brigade to 30,000 155, or 1,600 ish per gun. Which is right around the point where the barrels would need to be replaced at about 2,500 rounds.

So, through that very circuitous route, 1-2k rounds per artillery seems reasonable, though some specifics if anyone has them would be appreciated. Conventional rounds have about 22-23 km range, with a CEP of roughly 140 m at max range. Extended unguided seems to be roughly 30 km, no listed accuracy, and the Excalibur guided shells can get to roughly 40 km with a CEP of 4 meters. It seems roughly that 7,000 had been produced with 2,000 used, so maybe 5,000 to divide across all Brigades, or about 100-200 for the Brigade.

So, 18 M109 mobile artillery, with roughly 20,000 rounds of 155 regular, and 200 Excaliber guided shells seem to be roughly what the Armored brigade has regarding artillery. There is also a "target acquisition platoon" which may be the counter battery radar, maybe drones, don't know how flexible that is, and some recon cavalry elements, who also may or may not have drones. Probably short range ones like the RQ-20 if they do.

 

[Crom's Black Blade]

Hm, I did say a brigade, so if there's organic drones to it, that should be good. Something like an RQ-20 seems like it might be available at a brigade level. It has very low speeds (about 60 kmh) and short range (15 km) That's very shootable, and you'd have fair casualties on overflights, which comes down to endurance questions. Wiki suggests they're deployed as a "battery" of three drones. Your likely to lose all of them on the first day unless fairly conservatively flown.

Don't know if this is a discrepancy on the page itself or just wiki being wiki but under specifications it lists the drones speed as 52 mph/83 kph rather than 60 kph. Checking the link for where the specification data was culled from lists its speed as 37- 83 km/h.

Wayback Machine

web.archive.org

Also under "Operators" section it notes the US Army employs these 18 to a Brigade not 3.

AeroVironment RQ-20 Puma - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[JagerIV]

Don't know if this is a discrepancy on the page itself or just wiki being wiki but under specifications it lists the drones speed as 52 mph/83 kph rather than 60 kph. Checking the link for where the specification data was culled from lists its speed as 37- 83 km/h.

Wayback Machine

web.archive.org

Also under "Operators" section it notes the US Army employs these 18 to a Brigade not 3.

AeroVironment RQ-20 Puma - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Huh, didn't know they were that common. Fair enough then.

 

[JagerIV]

Some updates to costs I'm considering. Instead of summing up, I'm breaking it down. Looks like I only got to do infantry tonight. Let me know if anyone has any concerns with these descriptions, or if something critical is being left out.

Unit	Cost	Mass (shipping)	Description
Conscript	$5k	500 kg	Poor quality recruits, barely trained.
Guard	$100k	1 ton	Standard Guard qualty, reasonably trained good quality recruits.
Storm	$1m	2 ton	High quality recruits, extensive training, the 1%
Autogun	$1k	10 kg	Battle rifle equivalent
Lasgun	$5k	10 kg	2-20 KJ on target per shot, approx. 5.56mm - 50 cal., 1,500-150 shots highest vs lowest power. Long range vs unprotected infantry, shorter range vs more protected targets.
Hellgun/Sniper (roughly equivalent)	$50k	30 kg	20-200 KJ on target per shot, aprox 50 cal to 30-40mm rounds, 1,500 - 150 shots, with battery pack. Included tracker.
Flak soft	$500	10 kg	roughly equivalent to type II Body armor
Flak hard	$2k	15 kg	roughly equivalent to type III Body Armor
Carapace Armor	$20k	30kg	roughly equivalent to type IV Body Armor
Frag Grenade	$100	1kg	large 1 kg Frag grenade limits throw distance in exchange for firepower. Other Utility grenades such as smoke and illumination cost roughly equal.
Krak Grenade	$300	1kg	Real AT grenades like the RKG-3 suggest 100-200mm penetration is reasonable, 20 ish meter throw distance
Grenade Launcher	$5k	5kg	Fires standard grenades a short distance, generally less than 500m
Heavy Bolter	$50k	20 kg	1 km/s velocity, 200gr round, roughly 30mm armor pen, small explosive. $10 per round
Lascannon	$500k	50 kg	1-10 MJ Shot on target, approx. 75 mm to 2x120mm sabot
Mortar	$10k	20 kg	Shoots equivalent to Frag and Krak grenades out to roughly 2-4 km
Autocannon	$50k	100 kg	30-40 mm, slightly more accurate and long ranged than bolter, roughly equal cost munition at $10 per round, better fragmentation than bolter vs mass infantry, same 30 mm armor pen
Plasma Gun	$500k	30 kg	Hydrogen plasma deposits heat through 1-2 tons of Material. Against armor, this causes explosions in and past armor. This includes atmosphere, limiting range. Difficult for armor to stop.

 

[JagerIV]

Hm, so to get a bottom level idea of an alternate, more offensive mass spanning idea, I built a "Light conscript platoon".

90 conscripts, 30 with lasguns, 10 guard level to lead as a command squad/sergeants, with 6 Grenade launchers, with roughly 200 regular frag and utility grenades like smoke (mix of thrown and launched) and 50 Krak (mix thrown and launched). With a mixture of hard and soft flak.

This comes out to roughly $2 million per platoon. 40 Lasguns and 6 grenade launchers for 100 troops is partially to save cost, but primarily logistical: light infantry moves on foot, and a Lasgun plus magazines is some 3kg more weight, out of 30-40 kg manageable for a fit soldier, which conscripts might not be particularly fit. 3kg gives potentially an extra 2-3 days of rations for example. And makes frontal charges cheaper of course if only 1-3 have a lasgun.

The idea being for them to move and spread out on foot as fast as reasonable, some taking set strong points. En mass infiltrating forward across a wide front can hopefully attrition the Americans down: Krak grenades provide some threat to armor, smoke and frag provide at least some suppressive cover for maneuvers. Lasguns seem to have enough penetrative power that shooting at armored vehicles may have at least some degrading effects, especially against the lighter vehicles.

Foot may be able to mange 20-40 km a day, depending on fitness and load. The trick would be to get spread out quickly. Trucks would be really useful to accelerate dispersion. Ideally each "platoon" can create its own strong point at night, limiting the impact of any one attack.

5,000 men produces a fairly dense line advancing across a 20 km front. With roughly 300 grenade launchers and 2,000 Lasguns. Americans Probably have enough firepower to mulch this, and infiltration tactics are normally carried out by elitish forces, but perhaps you can achieve some infiltration by trial and error. If each Platoon can kill one armored vehicle, that would require about 250 platoons, or 25,000 men.

If they could start spread out across an initial 20-40 km of front with depth, could attrition through the armored brigade over a couple of days of combat, though defensive, offensive, and deep penetration. Without pre-positioning, some Chimeras or basic trucks to get the initial dispersion, which is key to this kind of force succeeding: it needs a large enough front so there will be plausible possibility of there being room to infiltrate and parts of the terrain without huge lines of sight.

This comes out to roughly $500 million dollar force. Which is only minorly cheaper than the tank heavy force, which might admittedly be calculated a bit too cheaply. Some level of vehicle transport would also be necessary I think: Armor from the word go can get to the landing zone in an hour or two, by which time on foot the infantry may have only advanced some 5-10 km at best. This gives the armor a good chance to bottle the infantry up in the landing zone, where artillery and firepower can be used to maximum effect.

Does this strike people as plausible on the pure terrible infantry side: 25,000 terrible infantry eventually attritions a 5,000 man armored force?

 

[JagerIV]

Huh, someone discussing the weakness of the Imperial guard on the board seems to line up with the problems/strengths I've encountered thinking about them in such a "realistic" senario.



Namely, there's issues with mobility and force concentration. This means guard on the table apparently prefer to attack on a wide front, hitting multiple targets at once, and in waves, because there's not physically enough space to do a single wave.

IRL guard seem to have similar issues: the Leman Rus for example is slow, so dynamically responding to the battle is difficult, and using a lot requires a wide front: 100 tanks with reasonable spacing suggesting 10 km front, but with their 10-20kmh speed, the left flank of such a formation can't really promptly respond something happening on the right. But, since the front generally have lower per unit efficiency, if any part of the line does encounter strong resistance, you don't have a particularly tough spearhead, so strong points your forces will tend to fail on.

So, the need to attack on a wide front, or when faced with strong points, assault in waves. So, a 100 tanks instead of line you do 4 lines of 25 each: narrows the attack to roughly 3 km. If no resistance is encountered, the enemy gets encircled even though the force isn't particularly fast because the front is wider than a much smaller, maybe faster can't defend the full front. Or if they do try to match width, that breaks the enemy force into smaller, more manageable chunks.

And if they don't hold the full line, objectives get taken, and encircling doubles or triples the length of the enemies line, negating the force concentration.