AT Guns

[Brindlewolf]

Does anyone have issues with taking out AT guns at all.Heres my point,how the hell can you kill these things.The amount of times in scenarios i've spent scouting for AT,contact,move FO or HQ to spot for mortar fire,waiting for rounds to drop,ok bang on target,hell more spotting lets hit them again.Nicely done,bring the tanks forward and BLAM,two dead tanks.So i've just wasted 15 to 20 mins spotting,engaging and sometimes half my arty ammo all for nothing.

This just gets annoying,doesn't matter what arty you use either from 60mm to the big stuff at times these guns just will not die.

I've even had guys on one side of bocage with line LOF and LOF with the AT gun on the otherside,just feet away,and its took anything from 5 to 10 turns for my guys to kill the one guy manning it.

Mortar fire should be enough to take these AT guns out surely,once spotted.

They just seem OP at times,seems easier to take enemy tanks out than these.

When i have AT guns ingame, they don't seem to last 2 mins in my hands

[Bradley Dick]

I had a similar situation where I thought the AT crews were invincible in the face of mortar fire. It turned out that my opponent had abandoned the guns once the rounds began to land. Luckily for him, the gun was intact. He manned the gun again after the barrage and I found myself doing a Charge of the Light Brigade against a fully crewed and fully intact 88mm. Of course, my frustration didn't get an explanation until post-game.

Were you playing the AI or a human?

[dpabrams]

It turned out that my opponent had abandoned the guns once the rounds began to land. Luckily for him, the gun was intact. He manned the gun again after the barrage

Ah, I don't think this is possible. Ounce you bail out of an AT gun, I don't think you can re-crew it.

[Bradley Dick]

Ah, I don't think this is possible. Ounce you bail out of an AT gun, I don't think you can re-crew it.

Have I been lied to? Now I must go test.

[dpabrams]

Have I been lied to? Now I must go test.

I thought this was impossible but I ran a quick test and the guns are abandoned immediatly. Move the crew back and the guns remain abandoned.

[Bradley Dick]

I thought this was impossible but I ran a quick test and the guns are abandoned immediatly. Move the crew back and the guns remain abandoned.

Yeah, I just tested it and it looks like my friend fibbed to me or misinterpreted something. I am embarrassed about passing on bad information without testing it.

[Hister]

No worries - it can happen to everybody, even to Chuck Norris!

[Bradley Dick]

That kind of brings up the question: Why? Wouldn't it be easy to crew and dismount an AT gun if we can do the same with tanks?

[dpabrams]

That kind of brings up the question: Why? Wouldn't it be easy to crew and dismount an AT gun if we can do the same with tanks?

That's a can of worms, a coding issue. AT guns would have to be coded as a vehicle in the bail out/ re-crew arena.

[Bradley Dick]

That's a can of worms, a coding issue. AT guns would have to be coded as a vehicle in the bail out/ re-crew arena.

Which would make them impossible to tow, I assume? Among other issues.

[Baneman]

Well, I would think that creating an AT gun as a vehicle would solve more than one problem - not only could you recrew it, but it would also then move backwards with Reverse command without the crew doing that whole 2 minute rotate thing which pretty much makes it impossible to get it out of trouble.

But yes, I think that the coding problem would be the towing issue.

But just think - if they could work that out, we could tow damaged/bogged/immobilised vehicles out of trouble/the bog using our Prime Movers which could be used to adjust losses in campaigns ...

Might also be possible to un-bog vehicles which aren't yet immobilised this way. Would be nice

[Bradley Dick]

Being forced to recover damaged vehicles would be kind of awesome. Though, I think it's not included in the game due to the rarity of it being conducted under fire. On the advance, rear units take care of it. On the retreat, you'd just leave it behind.

[Baneman]

True, I guess it's fallen in the "not happening often enough to be worth doing" category.

But if the vehicle-gun towing thing could be sorted, it would be a spin-off benefit.

[Brindlewolf]

I had a similar situation where I thought the AT crews were invincible in the face of mortar fire. It turned out that my opponent had abandoned the guns once the rounds began to land. Luckily for him, the gun was intact. He manned the gun again after the barrage and I found myself doing a Charge of the Light Brigade against a fully crewed and fully intact 88mm. Of course, my frustration didn't get an explanation until post-game.

Were you playing the AI or a human?

I play AI mostly,enemy AT guns can be a mare at times or maybe i just get impatient and just lose my tanks through carelessness.I should maybe wait until the smoke clears and recheck,just time consuming.AT guns can be quite a distraction with their jedi traits.

[SnakeTheFox]

I recall one time I had engaged a Pak 40 behind a hedgerow some 400m away from a column of Shermans. He knocked out 1 of the Shermans and I had the rest use it as cover to barrage the area (didn't have direct spot with the tanks, only my infantry) with some 30+ HE shells between them. At least 10 of the hits were within 2-3m of the AT gun.

Didn't do it.

So I shelled the area with 60mm mortar fire, about 20 rounds and about a third of which again landed within 3m of the gun.

Didn't cut it either.

So at this point I just decided to dump the remainder of my off-map 105's into it, about 10 rounds later and it was finally destroyed.

In certain situations AT guns are nigh on impregnable without heavy artillery support. But that's a good balancing factor I suppose, tends to keep thoughtless tank rush success rates low. But it's still frustrating to always have to wait for a fire mission to move forces up whenever some puny Pak lifts its head up.

[dpabrams]

AND ANOTHER THING! Why the heck does an AT gun with an area fire order fire its HE (makes sense) and once he HE is expended proceed to fire its AP? C'mon man!

[George MC]

Historically PAK were a real problem - especially 1943 onwards. Anyone pushing forward with tanks alone is asking for trouble - hence combined arms... Tanks bumping PAK could easily lose several of their number long before the PAK was a/ spotted b/ taken out.

PAK could also be hard to take out - hence combined arms - bump PAK use HE and/or dismounted infantry to clear em. Can't help but think, reading the posts, the issue is players' tactics rather than game engine limitations.

[dpabrams]

Historically PAK were a real problem .

Agreed. I had terrible luck with the pack in CMBN, so much so that I abandoned them in favor of Marder's. I have recently revisited the Pak and by using covered arc disipline and judicious use of the "hide" command I am having much better luck. I think the hide is the key. Units hiding in hedgerows seem to be mighty tough to root out with arty and artillery fire.

[Vanir Ausf B]

If anything the game engine limitations make then unrealistically easy to kill. Just imagine if the crews could run into a foxhole while the mortars fall around them, then run out and re-crew the weapon when the barrage cleared.

[altipueri]

Didn't even Wittman assume the anti-tank gun would always get the first shot?

Basically you won't spot a decently camouflaged AT gun until it has fired.

"Soldier, I want you to drive down that road and keep going until you get blown up." Patton, maybe.

[WinOrLose]

But even after they have got the first couple of shots out they can be a lottery as how well they get taken out.

[Amizaur]

And I have the opposite proble trying make use of At guns - a difficulity trying to get first shot against tanks (Panthers) from my 17pd AT guns. I just can't hide them efectively. Some Panthers are showing up at about 1000m range, frontally. My guns are not supposed to reliably hit and penetrate Panther's front at that range. I would prefer to wait untill Panthers close to about 500m before I order to open the fire, but it's impossible in the scenario I'm playing. My guns are detected by Panthers quickly from 1000m, engaged and destroyed.

Maybe I would have some chance with some Forest of Heavy Forest tiles, but I cant' find any, and positioning them just under (and behind) trees (in some kind of park) or behing bushes doesen't work at all. They are detected easily. Guns seem to be simulated as bare, naked steel objects, not camuflaged at all, just a gun standing on grass between some tree trunks - even though I positioned them there at setup phase, so the game really COULD assume that the crews had time to camuflage them a bit. You know, dig-in them a bit, bring some branches with leaves and put them on the gun... Anything that would make it a little bit less recognisable from distance.

I see various visual, graphical add-ons on tanks - like spare track links, sand bags ect. Couldn't AT guns positioned at setup phase with HIDE order - get some "stealthines" bonus, which would be visualised with some grass/bushes graphical add-on on put on the gun's shield ?

After the gun fires first shot, the stealth bonus would be removed and the "camuflage" visual add-on would disappear too, leaving a "bare metal gun" apperance .

This way, the "camuflage bonus" would be less abstracted, it would be visualised - you could see that there is some stuff on the gun (branches with leaves, tall grass) that makes it more difficult to spot. If it was not spotted, it would be understandable.

[Hpt. Lisse]

Amizaur - see "17pdr. bug" post in tech support. There's something going on where sometimes the 17 pdr. spontaneously limbers w/o orders to do so. I submitted it to Phil for analysis...

[Erwin]

The ease of being spotted and short life expectancy of ATG's has been often mentioned.

Apparently, they get no cover from foxholes or trenches.

We're supposed to place em further back in woods so that they can't be spotted so easily but can still see out. But, these exposes the "vagueness" of CM2 regarding exactly what terrain is a unit actually in, and indeed what can be seen.

In CM1 we had charts that showed exactly how far into and out of cover LOS would extend. The "hide the ATG in woods" approach means that we again need that sort of info to be able to play CM2 well. And the the game system is designed to deny us that info.

Another frustrating LOS example: An enemy tank had LOS to, and killed, one of my vehicles after seeing it across 500 meters of terrain that had trees in it (somewhere), through bocage with NO gaps (I checked), across a road, and through a 2nd bocage (this time with an inf gap) and then into yet more more trees where my vehicle was situated. My vehicle also saw this enemy tank and was attempting to fire back through the same arduous terrain.

Ok you say, these sorts of fluke LOS situations happen and at least both vehicles could see each other.

The problem is that the PLAYER (me) could not see any LOS after checking very carefully. If the PLAYER cannot see gaps in bocage and see any clear LOS when the computer can, this is very frustrating...

[Tigrii]

I've noticed as well that on occasion you can dump a lot of HE on an AT gun without much effect. It's worth bearing in mind that in certain situations it is not necessary to KO the gun, just block it with smoke (or even the dust kicked up by the otherwise failed barrage will sometimes do) and rush past its kill zone. Since effective ATG use often means carefully selected LOF/keyhole positions, once you're past you should be ok. Obviously this is not always the case though.