AT Guns: Problems and How to Solve Them?

[JonS]

last but not least: the survival of the crew is less important than to deny an intact gun falling into the hands of the enemy.

nonsense. Guns are cheap, trained crews are expensive, and the enemy has his own guns - he's no particular imperative to capture yours.

[HistoryLover]

And therefore such "precious" crew leaders are shot by martial court?

Not everything in life is about $$$ my friend. It's about the danger and damage a captured gun can inflict.

[John Kettler]

Returning, for the nonce, to tanks as bad places to operate cannon from compared to those in field fortifications, Clark (pp. 291,292) has some powerfully confirmatory data. A T-34 crewman at Kursk describes the interior of the (buttoned per military regs) became "excruciatingly hot." The crew is choking on the blue-grey cordite smoke, and he describes his iron steed as having "a lethal cocktail of toxic vapours." So dire did things become, that both the driver and the loader passed out. The driver's passing out was almost disastrous, because the T-34 accelerator is the inverse of ours. The less pressure applied to it, the faster the tank goes! With both the driver and the loader unconscious, the regs were ignored long enough to vent the tank by opening up the turret hatches, which shortly revived the previously unconscious half of the crew. While people passing out while on the move (tank was in combat and firing on the run) probably wasn't the norm at Kursk, it does give some idea of how bad it can get inside a buttoned tank there. Summing up, Vladimir Serinov, the man who was in that tank, likens that July 1943, and applied it to anyone in a tank then, experience to being placed in a hot oven pumped full of toxins and suffocated."

If I wanted to kill something with a 76.2 mm gun, I'd take a dug in ZIS-3. As for the 45mm, I'll take the ATG over the T-70 set up any day. Nikolai Litvin (45mm ATG gunner, 4th Guards AB Div) talks about how, from 500 meters, using a PP-9 telescopic sight, he could aim at, and hit, specific parts of the enemy tank. Of course, now I can't find that citation in Clark!

Regards,

John Kettler

[JonS]

therefore such "precious" crew leaders are shot by martial court?

As far as I'm aware, no one has ever been "shot by martial court." What would that even look like :confused:

It's about the danger and damage a captured gun can inflict.

In the short term: very little.

In the medium to long term: very little.

If either the enemy's plan of battle of their plan of operations depend on capturing this AT gun: you've already won.

Your gun is worth substantially less than my life.

[Cuirassier]

Returning, for the nonce, to tanks as bad places to operate cannon from compared to those in field fortifications, Clark (pp. 291,292) has some powerfully confirmatory data. A T-34 crewman at Kursk describes the interior of the (buttoned per military regs) became "excruciatingly hot." The crew is choking on the blue-grey cordite smoke, and he describes his iron steed as having "a lethal cocktail of toxic vapours." So dire did things become, that both the driver and the loader passed out. The driver's passing out was almost disastrous, because the T-34 accelerator is the inverse of ours. The less pressure applied to it, the faster the tank goes! With both the driver and the loader unconscious, the regs were ignored long enough to vent the tank by opening up the turret hatches, which shortly revived the previously unconscious half of the crew. While people passing out while on the move (tank was in combat and firing on the run) probably wasn't the norm at Kursk, it does give some idea of how bad it can get inside a buttoned tank there. Summing up, Vladimir Serinov, the man who was in that tank. He likens that July 1943 experience to being placed in a hot oven pumped full of toxins and suffocated."

If I wanted to kill something with a 76.2 mm gun, I'd take a dug in ZIS-3. Nikolai Litvin (45mm ATG gunner, 4th Guards AB Div) talks about how, from 500 meters, using a PP-9 telescopic sight, he could aim at, and hit, specific parts of the enemy tank. Of course, now I can't find that citation in Clark!

Regards,

John Kettler

That is not data. That is an anecdote.

And that is fantastic that Mr. Litvin could hit parts of a tank with his 45mm ATG at 500m. I'm sure Wittman could do the same in his Tiger. Who cares?

Practically all major armoured attacks (using proper combined arms eg early war Brits/Soviets don't count) were stopped by repositioning armoured reserves (tanks or TD's), not ATG's. ATG's never had the mobility nor durability under artillery fire to have much of an operational impact. They could give a bloody nose tactically here and there, but were too often simply avoided, suppressed by artillery fire or smashed through by more concentrated armour.

I would take the T-34 every day of the week, attacking or defending. CM and real life.

[Cuirassier]

As far as I'm aware, no one has ever been "shot by martial court." What would that even look like :confused:

In the short term: very little.

In the medium to long term: very little.

If either the enemy's plan of battle of their plan of operations depend on capturing this AT gun: you've already won.

Your gun is worth substantially less than my life.

True. For example, the Soviet Union produced more tube artillery than it could realistically supply. It was extremely cheap to make and they never had a global shortage of guns. And they lost a lot, particularly during the German offensive periods of the war. But the real resources that were valuable and needed to be husbanded were manpower, first and foremost, and armor.

[HistoryLover]

Your gun is worth substantially less than my life.

You overestimate your importance.

[JonS]

Not to me, I don't. And I suspect that a lot of other folk would make exactly the same valuation.

[altipueri]

“In the Soviet Union, it's takes more courage to retreat than advance.”

― Joseph Stalin

[John Kettler]

Revisiting the gun uncrewing issue, Litvin (in Clark, p. 295) describes how, having had a Stuka's bomb land a mere 60 meters from him, with more bombs coming right at him, and mere seconds before they hit, he wants to dash to the next dugout, but there isn't time. so he rushes into his and is nearly killed when a bomb goes off right on top of it. From this, we can clearly see that there were shelters for the personnel manning the field fortifications. Therefore, the guns are uncrewed during prep fires, after which the crews hastily man their guns and begin shooting up the Panzers.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Dadekster]

Hello everyone!

A couple of points:

Gun crews taking cover from enemy fire was a normal practice since the introduction of quick-firing artillery (and even before that). Actually, it was one the main goals of counterbattery fire, since the physical destruction of guns and crews was often not possible. A good reference point is a german breakthrough at Sedan (1940) when french losses in guns and personell were slight and yet their artillery was thoroughly neutralised. This applies to anti-tank gun crews as well. There is nothing "gamey" about that and it has nothing to do with crews "abandoning" their guns. As a matter of fact it's the current system that forces the player to abandon the guns, unless he wants to see his men lying hopelessly in the grass and being ripped apart by enemy shells. Even when the ability to recrew the guns will be introduced, the attacking player has several ways to counter this, all of which are historical and realistic:

1) He can try to disable the guns with direct HE fire, thus making them useless.

2) He can hit the guns with another barrage, if the crew is stubborn (foolish?) and wants to resume firing from the same position (The ability to instantly fire for effect, without spotting rounds, on already registered targets would greatly help here).

3) He can isolate the gun from the crew by direct fire, after the crew took cover.

Consider that when the crew is not manning the gun it's fire is neutralised, so I fail to see any "gamey" effect against the attacker.

As for the the guns mobility:

Smaller AT guns and infantry guns should be moved around the battlefield as they were historically (with proper consideration for terrain, crew fatigue etc.). They were designed specifically to follow closely the infantry and provide support against those targets that couldn't be neutralised by other heavy weapons. Again, nothing "gamey" about that. If someone tries to use them as tanks, he will be quickly punished by skillful opponent.

Yes, thank you! A moving AT/INF gun is not a tank but they did move. As of right now this is about impossible to achieve which sucks because smaller guns were capable of being moved around more than in game. Same case for crew being able to move around it. Now we will always find outliers to throw at one another but what Archijerej posted in points 1-3 is what the game tactics are all about regarding AT guns imho. For as much as they seemed to be used I find them very ineffective in game most of the time ime and this will only be magnified come Eastfront.

[noxnoctum]

A lot of really good points brought up by WynnterGreen and others, I hope BFC address this issue in a similar manner to how they implemented the MG changes.

[z-warfare]

Nothing to add to this, really, but I can't resist chiming in to say that having jumped to CMBN directly from CMx1 (and of course not having read the manual) I innocently assumed that guns could be 're-manned' by their crews (just like vehicles) after you told the crew to bail out.

Taking cover away from a gun and then re-manning it once a barrage lifts seems like an obvious move, and I can't imagine guns on the Eastern Front without that ability.

[Vanir Ausf B]

One related issue that I don't think has been mentioned is how you can locate the position of unspotted units by their firing sound. I would really like to see some random variation in sound location for unspotted units.

[Dadekster]

For some reason I thought that was already in the game? Thought all sounds contacts were approximations? Sounds can be a tricky thing, especially in an urban setting.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Nope. I just tested a couple of Pak 40s firing in hotseat mode. You can locate them to within a few action spots from the sound alone pretty easily.

[A Canadian Cat]

For some reason I thought that was already in the game? Thought all sounds contacts were approximations? Sounds can be a tricky thing, especially in an urban setting.

Those ? contacts are an approximation and often a ways off target. I think what @Vanir Ausf B is talking about is putting the camera low and moving around the area you suspect the fire is coming from and listening to the gun go off repeatedly while you hone in on where it is located.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Yes, that is what I am referring to. But as for the sound contacts that give a visual icon, those are also accurately located unless it has been changed very recently. I have tested moving vehicles in hotseat mode to confirm this.

[Childress]

Hunting down enemy sounds contacts- vehicles or guns or mortars- seems punishingly labor intensive. Do players really care that much about winning?

Another exploit is timing the Blue bar. The faster it moves left to right the less activity on the battlefield. And vice versa.

[slysniper]

Hunting down enemy sounds contacts- vehicles or guns or mortars- seems punishingly labor intensive. Do players really care that much about winning?

Another exploit is timing the Blue bar. The faster it moves left to right the less activity on the battlefield. And vice versa.

SURE DO, I Learned about this one when in a head to head battle I fired a 75 AT gun at a Sherman firefly that had revealed itself at about 1000 Meters.

I figure I would fire once or twice and get away with it since I was behind a hedge and had decent cover.

I fired only once and the tank retreated, a few turns later he moved three Shermans up and all three from different locations area fired on the exact location of my gun.

My opponant admitted to me that is how he had found the gun. because it had not even indicated ? in the game. So what should have been a freebe shot turned into the death of my gun. And plenty of players do use the sound to track units down. So dont fire unless you want to be located. I have myself located unit by when they drive over objects they are crushing also. very easy to locate them and at times see what has been crushed even though you have no eyes on the location.

[A Canadian Cat]

My opponant admitted to me that is how he had found the gun. because it had not even indicated ? in the game. So what should have been a freebe shot turned into the death of my gun. And plenty of players do use the sound to track units down. So dont fire unless you want to be located.

Yeah I found my self doing that a couple of times. Felt guilty after and now have sworn off doing. I find it easy to *not* do it. Reality is you can get a pretty good idea of what area is safe or under threat by paying attention to where the hits come from. That is good enough for me now.

I have myself located unit by when they drive over objects they are crushing also. very easy to locate them and at times see what has been crushed even though you have no eyes on the location.

That one is much harder to not pay attention to but I don't go looking for them either.

[A Canadian Cat]

But as for the sound contacts that give a visual icon, those are also accurately located unless it has been changed very recently. I have tested moving vehicles in hotseat mode to confirm this.

I just experienced this kind of ? being wrong just the other day. I had a Stuart being chased by a Tiger. This was actually against @slysniper. The Tiger got two of his platoon mates but the lead Stuart managed to slip away (by driving right past the Tiger and looping behind it). The Tiger tried to back up to get him. The solid contact changed into a ? and continued to move roughly as the Tiger had been as the Stuart put some trees between them. I had the Stuart do a 360 around the tress etc thinking the Tiger was following to try to get a view of the Stuart running away across the next field.

The Stuart came around the corner back to where it started and surprise the ? on the opposite side of the cover disappear and was replaced by the Tiger pretty much were my guys saw it last. Ouch. The ? contact was 20 or 30m off.

The Stuart actually managed to get away - thank goodness they are fast.

[A Canadian Cat]

One related issue that I don't think has been mentioned is how you can locate the position of unspotted units by their firing sound. I would really like to see some random variation in sound location for unspotted units.

This would actually be pretty nice. If the sound was randomly played from even the neighbouring action squares it would make locating the gun much harder. Not quite as good as crickets' defense mechanism but close.

[Other Means]

This would actually be pretty nice. If the sound was randomly played from even the neighbouring action squares it would make locating the gun much harder. Not quite as good as crickets' defense mechanism but close.

Yep, that sounds like a great solution. The sound contact icon should vary in its position quite a bit (maybe with a relationship with the the wind direction) and that's also where the sound should be played from.

[Childress]

SURE DO, I Learned about this one when in a head to head battle I fired a 75 AT gun at a Sherman firefly that had revealed itself at about 1000 Meters.

I figure I would fire once or twice and get away with it since I was behind a hedge and had decent cover....So dont fire unless you want to be located. I have myself located unit by when they drive over objects they are crushing also. very easy to locate them and at times see what has been crushed even though you have no eyes on the location.

You gamey bastiche! All you ex-military types are alike. Deformation professionale? Wait... I recall that Emrys was the first to fess up to this exploit.