Ratkinoe - Lack of Firepower?

[cullen-skink]

Hello,

OK, now that I have the game up and running I had my first proper battle up by the Mzha river. Playing as Germans, I got what felt like a good kicking, although it showed up as a "minor defeat".

The thing I was wondering - I was facing about 8-9 KV-1s and T-34s with nothing meatier than a handful of half tracks, mainly sporting heavy machine guns. No artillery, no air support. Managed to get three of the heavies - two of them by pretty much ramming them and having infantry lob grenades at them, but at a really heavy cost. My SdKfz's took a right pummeling a la Wittmann

Is there any advice on this - should I just have avoided battle altogether? Split my forces in two and encircled them, leaving them on the south side of the river? It seems a pretty pointless task shooting at heavy armour with machine guns...