Mission 4 - The Battle of Kursk | Soviet | Campaign Sudden Strike 4 Guide

Mission objectives:

• Hold the line of defense and retreat to the next when you receive the order

In this mission, you will be mostly defending your positions, although the last step is planned to be a counter offensive. The support doctrine will be most useful - especially the camouflage. There's a big area of scarcely vegetated forests, which can be used to outflank the opponents. When defending, don't hold the bulk of your infantry in trenches! Better to divide them into a couple foxholes than keep them all in one place. The enemy will have to split their offensive. Keep valuable units at the back. In this mission, you can receive many AT soldiers, who aren't very effective against medium and heavy tanks. The best countermeasure in this mission are the cannons located in the forests, and reinforced with sandbags, as well as tanks that you can use to outflank the enemy.

Mines (also available in the support doctrine) are very useful here, and should be placed in front of the trenches. This way you can be sure that a tank will hit at least one of them. Also set up several spotters. The enemy waves will always be coming from three directions (1), so if your scout survives the first wave undetected, they should also remain in place at the next wave. The enemy will most often use only vehicles, but occasionally infantry will support him. Use this to your advantage and flank the enemy units with tanks at the moment of attack on your positions. Cannons and infantry will distract the enemy, while your tanks will easily destroy enemy units.

Try to remember the paths of hostile vehicles. The enemy always takes the same route - use mines. In this mission, the enemy usually leaves a vehicle if the caterpillar tracks get damaged.

You could go one step further and mine the area where the enemies are coming from. Watch the road and place the mines on the path that they take. Each wave of enemies takes the same path. Usually around 2-3 waves will come from the same direction over and over again, until you defend the last line. The enemy usually abandons vehicles with damaged caterpillars if it's safe outside. This creates a problem and an advantage: you can strengthen your forces if you repair the vehicles, but the crew provides more vision for the enemy.

A well-fortified line is able to withstand most enemy attacks.

You don't have to leave the trenches line, even upon receiving a retreat order. It can be dangerous, and you may lose men and equipment. If you're doing good, you can even reinforce the line with some of the reserves. Don't worry about leaving hardware behind when you need to retreat. Later on, you will push back. That will be a good moment for repairs and re-supplying. The best defense spots are offered by line two (2). A sparse forest grows in front of it - your camouflaged tanks will be able to easily maneuver, flank the enemy and strike from behind. There's a forest behind that line as well (3), which will facilitate the defense. Place there the reserve infantry and armor.

Tanks with camouflage are ideally suited for outflanking the enemy and effectively eliminating enemy vehicles. You should preferably attack the enemy when it engages with your defense force.

Take good care of your armor - the success hinges on them. At a later stage, the enemy attacks will become fiercer because they will consist of heavy tanks. Towards the end of defending the last line, there will come an attack from all three directions. If your forces have been able to cope so far, you should persevere with the help of your reserves. Keep the tanks on hold and move them to the most severe areas. Try to approach and attack simultaneously so that the enemy doesn't have time to turn. The armor of German tanks is too thick for most your weapons.

Deal with groups of enemy tanks by firing from sides - use cannons, tanks, AT units or airplanes.

At the end, you will have to counterattack the forces gathering in the frirst line (4) and right next to the upper edge of the map (5). The group closer to you consists of medium and heavy tanks, but some of them will be weakened. The group in the north is dug in and basically consists of heavy tanks only. The sandbags don't allow the tanks to move so they're an easy target. When you've got no more tanks left, take all your cannons, turn fire at will off, flank the tank, shoot simultaneously and proceed to the next machine.