ATG issues revisited

[Erwin]

Situation: A German ATG in foxholes AND woods firing at two Allied tanks crossing from left to right about 500 meters away.

First shot misses, 2nd shot kills a TD, a few seconds later a Sherman scores a direct hit on the ATG and kills it.

Could be just Allied luck. But, I thought it would be a LOT harder to spot an ATG in woods/foxholes, and also to score a direct hit and kill it so easily half a kilometer away in cover and concealment.

I recall others comments to that effect some time ago. What are your experiences?

[akd]

[YankeeDog]

1st shot kill on the ATG was probably bad luck -- in my experience, it can often take quite a few shots for a tank to get a killing hit in on a well-positioned gun. But it is, in the end, a roll of the dice, so a first-round kill will certainly happen some of the time.

But assuming we're talking about a larger ATG here (75mm or larger), the gun being spotted after one or two shots @ 500m doesn't surprise me all that much. As shown by AKD's videos, there's a lot of bang and dust kicked up when a gun that large lets loose.

[Hilts]

Well, the ATG in the video is not concealed and has been set up on dry ground. I'm not convinced it would be so easily identified firing from concealment in possiblly damp wood undergrowth, even if it did have a loud bang. From my experience tank commanders in CMBN seem to have bionic eyes and it doesn't make that much difference if they are buttoned up either. The problem seems to be that as soon as anything opens fire like Erwin has described they immediately zero in on it. I have had troops crawling in a wood that have been spotted by enemy tanks! You are very lucky in this game if you can take out more than one tank with an ATG. Something should be done about it, if possible.

[weapon2010]

Videos are interesting but not relevant.A concealed at gun(in foxholes and woods) under normal circumstances would be invisible at 500 yards.Im talking about 75mm at gun.Until it shoots, whether it gets spotted after the first shot depends on many factors.Tank's position relative to at guns position, tank crew expereince, what else is going around the battle feild?confusion? , smoke?, multiple at guns?, other tanks?even the sound the at gun makes would blend into obscurity on an active battlefield with hundreds of blasts going on. So in Erwins post its quite possible for that to be accurate representation but just not enough information.

[Erwin]

I forgot to mention - it was a 75mm L/46.

I have found both ATG's and inf guns very hard to use in CMBN. Maybe the maps up to date have been too small to use them at "safe" ranges. Usually the gun is within inf LMG and MG range.

But, in this case I thought the placement was the best possible (foxholes and woods) and firing at tanks' flanks as they moved across field of vision. There was also some sort of wheatfield along the 500m to the two tanks.

Other than extreme keyholing where the ATG can only see one tank at a time I can't figure how to use ATG's in this game and have them survive more than a couple shots. (And if they survive, they take too long to move afterwards to set up at a 2nd position - don't want to put a halftrack or truck at risk. So, where they get placed initially is generally where they stay.)

Same deal with inf guns too. Any other tricks you guys have successfully tried in CMBN?

[Moon]

I may be wrong but I don't think that foxholes provide much cover for an AT gun. As for "woods"... Keep in mind that placing an AT gun at the edge of a wooded area won't magically hide it. Try placing it deeper inside and behind more trees.

An AT gun may be well camouflaged before it fires, but after it fires, it is widely visible to anyone on the battlefield due to the smoke signature. What type of ammo is fired matters, too. IG guns are probably even worse than ATG in that respect.

Keyholing is definitely the best thing you can do to avoid a lethal response from the enemy. Once spotted ATGs are fairly big, fairly immobile targets.

Other than keyholing, teaming up is something else you can do. Make sure that more than one ATG engages a target simultaneously. The base idea behind both of these is that you make sure to kill anyone that can spot you once you open fire

Tank crews actively scan their flanks with whatever optics they have. This includes optics with magnification, so 500m isn't that far. If they would spot your ATG BEFORE the first shot, then that would be a problem, but afterwards not so much anymore. The one hit kill was use pure luck most likely.

Martin

[Erwin]

That makes sense if it reflects ATG's vulnerability in RL... or do they usually try to engage at longer ranges so the ATG's are not so easily spotted?

It's also an issue that scenario designers might want to think about... it's "nice" to have on map guns... but if there is only one and it has to be transported to do any good, it is a unit that one tries to keep away from any harm rather than being able to do much good with it... except in the very few situations where there is a nice keyhole opportunity (and one is able to safely transport it there and have time for it to deploy).

[winkelried]

i used my ATG in one of the battles in Kampfgruppe Engel positioned behind a bocage. distance to target (a bridge) roughly 300m - firing down a keyhole: on the left bocage on the right small forest - roughly 10 degrees wide. target is visible for approx 30 meters on the bridge. flanking shot. ATG protected by one HMG.

in front of the attacker an infantry platoon giving small arms fire and stopping tanks on the bridge. the firing line of the infantry and the ATG form almost a T.

result: two dead shermans with three shots. no own losses. bridge blocked.

after this immediately popping smoke in front of the ATG and packing up and changing position - since i assume, that the position has been seen by now.

so it can be done. ATGs can be used with quite some success. have some other positive examples.

[sburke]

I have had surprising success with the smaller ATGs 50mm for ex. Harder to spot. You need a good flank position, but even if it doesn't kill it can do a number on a tankers morale.

[Hister]

Ah, good strategy - will try myself...

[Michael Emrys]

From my experience tank commanders in CMBN seem to have bionic eyes and it doesn't make that much difference if they are buttoned up either.

That seems to get reported a lot. How often do players get frustrated because their tank didn't spot something the player thought was perfectly obvious? Comparing those two numbers might prove interesting.

Michael

[Amizaur]

Any my AT guns usually are spotted BEFORE they fire. Even those hidden in woods. If they manage to stay hidden untill shooting, then after firing a shot or two, usually missing, they are targeted in few seconds and hit - often with first shot from the tank.

Tanks shooting at AT gun seem for me to have better accuracy than AT-Gun firing on tank... Maybe not always, but often...

LEt's see...

Tank - a big contrast target, located usually in an open field, at the moment when shooting starts. In a TYPICAL engagement, the AT-gun, being hidden, has time to do all the calcs, measure the range, set the sights, say the loader to be ready with the next round, take a big breath and then open fire. After the first shot, if they missed, they can correct and fire next shot very quickly, having very good ROF - free standing guns with multiple loaders and ammo bearers tends to have much better ROF than same guns mounted in cramped space inside a tank turret, with only one loader.

AT-Gun - small or very small (in case of parially dig-in 50-75mm AT guns) target, a poor-contrast target - often you can see the flash, but can't see the gun itself, masked with foliage, bushes, hidden in shadow or on dark bacground. Often best you can do is fire HE shells aiming at the flash or at the cloud of smoke, hoping it would hit something and get the crew with shrapnel. Rarely a gun itelf can be recognised easily - that would mean very poor concealement for the gun. In the typical enagement, the gun observes the target and has a first shot. The tank is the prey and is taken by surprise - it doesn't see the shooter, it's exposed. It has to locate the enemy (rarely knowing where to look for it, front or right or maybe left), target it, usually load the gun, ten aim and fire at the flashes or smoke, rarely seeing the contours of the gun itself.

It seem, in most cases it should be the gun that wins. In 80% of cases, I would say.

Well, other tanks can locate the gun and destroy it with HE fire, but the firsttank that was engaged by AT gun tank should stand no chance usually. I think.

How about doing some single tank-at vs at-gun tests in the game ? Run it 100 times and check what's the proportion of wins and loses ? Of course the gun should have good chances to penetrate the target, let's say PAK-40 vs a Sherman, or 17pd vs side of a Panther.

BTW being an AT-gun commander, I would order to throw or maybe wire-trigger some grenades 20-50m left and right from the gun, after firing first shot - as decoys. In hope the flash and smoke from grenade explosions would be recognised as flashes of my gun, and maybe engaged instead of my gun. Anyway, it could focus some attention of the enemy, giving me few additional seconds maybe.

In the game the accuracy of tank fire agains AT-gun and AT-gun against the tank seem to be comparable. Sometimes the gun hits tanks, and tanks need 3-4 shots to get it, sometimes the gun can't hit anything with 3 shots and is killed with 1th shot from the tank. Would say, equal.

Tanks seem to see the AT-gun directly and aim at it directly, often scoring direct hits.

[black_prince]

When it comes to spotting AT guns, I don't have any personal experience. But here's a quote from Otto Carius that I found interesting:

Tank commanders who slam their hatches shut at the beginning of an attack and don't open them again until the objective has been reached are useless or at least second rate. There are of course six to eight vision blocks mounted in a circle in every cupola that allow observation. But they are only good for a sector of the terrain, limited by the size of the individual vision block. If the commander is looking through the left vision block when an antitank gun opens fire from the right then he will need a long time before he identifies it from the buttoned-up tank....It is quite different whenever the tank commander raises his head occasionally in an open hatch to survey the terrain. If he happens to look halfway to the left when an enemy antitank gun opens fire halfway to the right, his eye will subconciousely catch the shimmer of the yellow muzzle flash. His attention will immediately be directed toward the new directon and the target will usually be identified in time.

[BadgerDog]

I have had surprising success with the smaller ATGs 50mm for ex. Harder to spot. You need a good flank position, but even if it doesn't kill it can do a number on a tankers morale.

I know you have ...

Those little suckers are really hard to spot and forced me to withdraw after getting 4 or 5 hits, breaking radios, optics and the beer cooler, which was the most important thing I regret losing ...

In all seriousness, you were very effective with them and stopped at least two "advance to contacts" and one assault with those beasts ...

Regards,

Doug

[winkelried]

AT-Gun - small or very small (in case of parially dig-in 50-75mm AT guns) target, a poor-contrast target - often you can see the flash, but can't see the gun itself, masked with foliage, bushes, hidden in shadow or on dark bacground. Often best you can do is fire HE shells aiming at the flash or at the cloud of smoke, hoping it would hit something and get the crew with shrapnel.

i think what is often underestimated is the force of the gas exhaust of a shot fired and the impact this can have on the environment. the videos mentioned above show this pretty well. if you put an ATG into bushes, foilage etc you can expect a lot of those to fly around. so you don't just have the primary effects of a shot fired (flash, smoke - if any) but also secondary effects like flying leafes and dust being thrown up. i read that ATG crews would water the ground in front of the gun to prevent too much dust being blown up and the like.

a tanker would fire anything he has in direction of the (assumed) blast. HE and MGs.

[sburke]

I know you have ...

Those little suckers are really hard to spot and forced me to withdraw after getting 4 or 5 hits, breaking radios, optics and the beer cooler, which was the most important thing I regret losing ...

In all seriousness, you were very effective with them and stopped at least two "advance to contacts" and one assault with those beasts ...

Regards,

Doug

? I think maybe you are confusing me with another opponent.

[dieseltaylor]

What is with the dead TD?! Erwin. : ) Tank Destroyer to me.

What would be nice to know is if the tanks are traversing across the ATG then we may assume that only the commander can be spotting at right angles - unless the turret was also facing. Were the commanders buttoned? Where the tanks still moving when firing. What happened to the tank with the dead driver?

The fact the gun is in "foxholes" would/should indicate a prepared position with all necessary action by the ATG crew in dampening soil moving debris, camouflage. Does BF make an allowance for emplaced guns?

As for missing a tank at 500metres traversing across that seems very unlucky indeed. However what version is being played as unless it is 1.10 it seems futile talking of past events and old videos. An equivalent British gun range firing is on around 100% at that is without intervening trees/cornfields . We do know the tanks are not hulldown because of the nailed driver.

I do believe the tanks have had too fast reaction times and this may still be true.

[winkelried]

made a few tests:

one Pak40, regular, normal,0 on a light forest tile with triple D-type trees.

at 500 m from ATG a road with a visible stretch of 50 m. inbetween grass tiles.

British Sherman II and III, regular, normal, 0.

1. a sherman rolling on the road at normal and hunt is seen by the ATG, but the ATG is not able to get a shot. Aiming takes too long.
   
2. a sherman stopping for 5 seconds in the midst of the 50 m stretch gets hit. ATG is not seen by tank.
   
3. two shermans in column with guns trailed (cover arc) in direction of the ATG get shot up without seeing the ATG. ATG fires 3 to 4 shots.
   
4. two shermans running up frontally to the ATG get brewed up without seeing the ATG.
   
5. four shermans running up frontally ID the ATG after its fourth or fifth shot, and can take out the ATG occasionnally. Most of the time two to three shermans get brewed up.
   

Other findings:

1. It takes the ATG approx 6-7 seconds to get a first shot. second shot takes approx 6 seconds.
   
2. At 500 meters with roughly ATG 70 shots observed I had only two or three misses.
   
3. shermans tend to fire high into the trees. one out of 5 shots lands short. usually they don't get a second or a third shot to actually hit the gun.
   
4. i added a scout team to the brits and could ID the ATG immediately at 500m - even before the first shot.
   

[winkelried]

ran the same test with allied ATG (US 76mm and 17pdr):

1. ATG ROF is lower than German (76mm approx 10sec, 17pdr approx 12sec)
   
2. results for flanking shots are the same
   
3. frontal shots end badly for the ATG since it cannot penetrate the Panther frontal armor. 2 Panther can still be koed or to make retreat.
   
4. Germans usually lose 1 to 2 panthers (out of 4).
   

[Erwin]

I suppose my actual question would be what is "normal" performance and lifespan for an ATG in similar situations?

My example would imply that an ATG's life is measured in seconds after it first fires at 500m range from foxholes/wood assuming 2+ targets visible at the same time. (Of course it may have been that lucky/unlucky one in a hundred situations.)

[akd]

I suppose my actual question would be what is "normal" performance and lifespan for an ATG in similar situations?

My example would imply that an ATG's life is measured in seconds after it first fires at 500m range from foxholes/wood assuming 2+ targets visible at the same time. (Of course it may have been that lucky/unlucky one in a hundred situations.)

The only thing that you can derive from your anecdote is that the outcome you observed under those specific circumstances is a possible outcome. You cannot not make any other conclusions.

[Moon]

The fact the gun is in "foxholes" would/should indicate a prepared position with all necessary action by the ATG crew in dampening soil moving debris, camouflage.

You are thinking in terms of abstracted hex-based games. CMBN doesn't work like this, generally. There are a few abstractions, but they are a necessary evil. In general, you should assume that the game is pretty WYSIWYG. So, foxholes are foxholes. For soldiers. Not for AT Guns.

The same applies to being "in woods". You seem to be thinking of hexes where a unit gets a bonus from the terrain it's in. In CMBN, what counts more is what is BETWEEN the units. In other words, make sure to place your ATGun deep inside the woods, not right on the edge.

Does BF make an allowance for emplaced guns?

Yes. When you setup an AT Gun during the Setup phase and do not move it, it is assumed to be emplaced / camouflaged accordingly.

Martin

[Moon]

I suppose my actual question would be what is "normal" performance and lifespan for an ATG in similar situations?

My example would imply that an ATG's life is measured in seconds after it first fires at 500m range from foxholes/wood assuming 2+ targets visible at the same time. (Of course it may have been that lucky/unlucky one in a hundred situations.)

Yup, that pretty much is what I would expect to happen in real life based on what I just wrote: foxholes don't do anything for an AT Gun, and "woods" is relative to your position within the forest and behind what trees. If you're on the edge of "woods", you're just barely less visible than in the open after firing.

Martin

[winkelried]

I suppose my actual question would be what is "normal" performance and lifespan for an ATG in similar situations?

My example would imply that an ATG's life is measured in seconds after it first fires at 500m range from foxholes/wood assuming 2+ targets visible at the same time. (Of course it may have been that lucky/unlucky one in a hundred situations.)

During the cold war we had some measures like this for central europe. As far as I remember they were

• 1 tank kills 2 tanks
  
• 1 ATG kills one tank
  
• 1 bazooka kills 0.5 tanks
  

1 APC killed was equivalent to 0.5 tanks killed