AT Gun Placement?

[El Griz]

I don't know why, but I'm just not getting this concept. Obviously, each board is different. However, I would like some input on the best terrain to set up in. Also, is it better to set up with wide LOS or lanes? Finally, in a scenario like the one I played last night, is it better to set your guns up on hilltops where they see everything (and everything sees them), or should I place them in depressions where they have limited LOS and hope something wanders by for them to shoot at?

Scott

[Wreck]

Ideally you want them placed with a keyhole (very narrow) view of some terrain that the enemy is forced to go through. As you say, it depends on the map -- a lot of times there won't be any such place. So then you want to try to find a location that can see enough so that you still get to kill a tank or two. Generally speaking you should look at high places first. Remember that elevated fire often has an edge in penetration because it lowers the incidence angle of hits.

If possible, alway place your AT guns in trees or rough. Brush or wheat will provide concealment until you open up, at least if the enemy is not that close, but they will not protect you and the gun will be easily knocked out.

Try to find a position where with only a small repositioning through cover (i.e. 20m, perhaps), you can see a lot more of the board. This becomes your backup plan -- if the enemy confounds your expectation and does not seem likely to move into your initially chosen field of fire, then hopefully you can push the gun over and still be effective.

Another useful thing to keep in mind while placing AT guns, is the evil interaction of CM's borg sighting and explosive buildings. Try to place the gun so that you can see bits of second stories in key areas (i.e. a village where a flag is). If you do this then you can often attack infantry in those buildings unseen. By the way, AP is not very effective against infantry by itself, but it is fairly effective in exploding buildings. So don't stop firing at a building just because you used up your HE.

Things not to do: don't place AT guns directly behind a infantry position that will get shelled, close enough to catch some of the shells.

[JasonC]

You set them up in wooded foxholes. It can help if they are behind a wall, but only if they also have trees there. You can't dig in to other terrain types, or put them in buildings, and anything open enough is unsafe because the crew can break and run away from the gun. The real question is which LOS view to pick for the woods you choose to put them in.

And that depends mainly on what else you have and your whole defensive plan, not just on the map. When you only have one heavy PAK in a small scenario, and your only other AT weapons are infantry teams, you more or less have to pick a spot with wide LOS, but preferably pretty far back toward your own side. You hope you are facing only one tank, and hide until you can shoot it. Or if facing two, until an AT team bags one. Or you don't have any more choice, because the tanks are messing up your infantry.

The thing to understand is that a PAK with wide LOS is going to die after its first kill. Ability to see everything means the ability of everything to see you. You can bag the first victim by hiding until you have a good, effective shot, but chances are right after that, the gun will take lots of fire, get suppressed, and often stay heads-down until KOed.

Another deployment option that can work very well is the "second slope" position. This requires the right sort of map and is often not available, especially on a small one. But when available, and when you build your defense on a reverse slope plan, if can be very effective.

The idea here is the same wide LOS, over only about half of the map. The near half. Your half. You put infantry and infantry AT weapons just behind a rise that blocks LOS to your half of the map. (Mines right along the crest are another plus). Then you put your ranged weapons - PAK, also HMGs, mortars, sharpshooters, FLAK, field guns - on the forward side of the next slope farther back, but low enough down that the first rise blocks LOS to the far side of the map. Then they see the whole near side of the ridge, but are not seen by anything farther.

Then you kill anything that comes over the ridge. The ridge effectively seperates the attackers from front to back - the enemy's rear units can't see your shooters firing at the front units. Your whole force, more of less, can see a few attackers, giving you "many on few" engagements. You outshoot each packet of enemy as they come over the ridge. If they try to all come at once, add a barrage to penalize them for bunching up (mines also help with that).

There are variants of the second slope idea that use something besides the ideal ridge lines to perform LOS seperation. Looking out from behind a building only on the right side, or defending just one open field "layer" between stretches of woods, are examples. You have a wide but restricted field of fire - everything that comes past point X - while nothing outside the restricted area can see you to reply. Call it the "limited LOS" idea. You come off "hide" when you can outshoot the enemies in the sighted area. This is probably the second most common deployment, besides "up, wide LOS" as a "throwaway", one-tank killing weapon.

The last major deployment idea is the "keyhole" idea. This involves narrower lines of sight, but long ones. Between two buildings, between a hill and a patch of woods, etc. Typically this is a 30 degree cone of fire stretching a long way across the map. The idea is to outshoot the limited enemies that come into this cone of fire. You can even let some go to take on only forces you can handle. One added benefit is that there is less time rotating to target, making engagements faster. It is harder for the enemy to distract the gun.

Keyhole is a much more survivable way to deploy a gun, but not necessarily a more effective one. Because the enemy's riposte is just to clear out of that cone of fire, and advance elsewhere. This makes it a useful tactic for mobile AFVs, but harder to use with an immobile gun. If you have enough guns, however, you can create criss-crossing keyhole sighting cones, which force the enemy to cross somebody's field of view. AT teams can fill in some of the shorter lines, and AT mines or roadblocks can block some of the obvious bypass routes.

There is one other wrinkle with smaller AT guns, like the German 50mm or the US 57mm. These guns often need flank shots to kill tanks. You are much more likely to get a flank shot on an enemy moving straight ahead, while you are shooting sideways, than shooting straight ahead at an enemy moving sideways. Because tanks don't like moving sideways, and thus presenting their thinner armor, if they can help it. They often can, by making such moves behind cover when they need to change their lines of advance.

So these guns need to be placed to face "inward". It works best when you have two of them, with limited LOS for each, towards each other and covering the ground right in front of their "partner". The most common way of getting this effect is two "limited LOS" deployments, looking toward the same field or valley - right gun peeking out leftward, left gun peeking out rightward. Two crossing "keyholes" is a less common variant. A poor man's solution if you have only one, is to use a infantry AT team as the second of the pair, while shielding the immediate front of the lone ATG with a second infantry AT team, AT mines, regular infantry, or ground tanks can't get through.

However you wind up planning your AT defense - which involves the placement of all your AT guns, AT teams, AT mines, and heavy AFVs - you then have to operate the defense correctly, too. For the AT guns, this means staying on "hide" until you like the "sight picture" you've got. You do not want to expose your heavy PAK to wandering half-squads. You will get a shelling for it. So stay on "hide" until you know the right kind of target - armor you can kill - is in view or about to be. Then come off hide.

It helps if you have something button the target before the shot, too - sharpshooters, a barrage, MGs. This will reduce his ability to spot the gun when it fires, and increase its chances of winning the immediate duel as a result. It can also let you hide again the next turn if nothing is shooting at you, and perhaps pull it off again.

The last thing is just to have the right mindset and expectations. It is great when a PAK gets multiple kills, winning the armor war for you practially singlehanded, and cheaply. But that is an "outlier". What you want from purchase of a PAK is to kill one true tank out of the enemy force, before the PAK itself is KOed. The tank generally costs more, even at defender's odds. It is a trade you can afford. If, in addition, the enemy has to spend half a module of artillery or all his light mortar ammo knocking out the gun in reply, then you've drawn the teeth from those attackers too. Don't expect one hidden PAK to stop a tank platoon "because" it can see the whole board - it won't.

[Redwolf]

In addition to the good advise:

Keep in mind that woods and other LOS-limiting terrain drop the hit probablity drmatically. A gun back in woods so that it can see the map in front of it, but only barelt has a very low hit chance. That is not good, because the gun needs to shoot more often on the same target and hence the chance of getting spotted is higher, not lower than if it was at the front of the woods. If I don't get foxholes anyway, I like rough much more, amoung others for that reason.

Study hit probablity in the editor, for different guns, in different positions in cover, for different target AFVs.

Note the extreme hit probability of flak guns. You can expect to kill with first shot, and very likely even two AFVs in one turn. A bunch of Greyhounds and Priests in LOS of a 20mm is dead beef, as are Stuarts or M8 HMCs in LOS of a 37mm AA gun. The common group of 251/9 halftracks in LOS of a Bofors won't be pleased either. This extreme hit probabilty only applies to multiple-round AA guns, it does not apply to the 88mm flak, but it applies to 20mm and 37mm armed vehicles.

Also note that there are difference in vulnerability and spotting probability for guns:

- CMBO models the shields you see on many guns (but i.e. not on Allied AA guns). These are less vulnerable to smallarms fire and HE hits from front. These guns should be preferred to be attacked with HE

- infantry guns are easier to spot than similar howitzers

- I noted that the Bofors is very easy to spot, even when not firing. I'm not sure why that is. The German AA guns seem especially hard to spot when firing, I guess that spotting probability is connected to the calibre and maybe muzzle flashes/dust

One thing I like to discuss is when to open fire when on defense. So far I kept my head down pretty long, to have many targets in kill zones when I decide to open fire. I also set up with that in mind.

However, it occurs to me that it works better to pick off armour as soon as possible, because:

- few enemy units in LOS means your gun has a chance not to be spotted

- after picking off an AFV and if you know you have been spotted, you

can start plastering likely artillery spotter positions or other

"luck-exploit" targets

- hit probability is worse, but the answer is HE shots, which suffer

even more from distance

- also you will probably have less units shooting back, especially if

infantry isn't in effective range at all

- delay matters, more often than not the attacker runs out of time

- he might decide to spend his artillery on a gun at a time where he

doesn't have other targets to choose from

Opinions?

[ 12-10-2001: Message edited by: redwolf hates artillery ]

[ 12-10-2001: Message edited by: redwolf hates artillery ]</p>

[CombinedArms]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by redwolf hates artillery:

In addition to the good advise:

One thing I like to discuss is when to open fire when on defense. So far I kept my head down pretty long, to have many targets in kill zones when I decide to open fire. I also set up with that in mind.

<hr></blockquote>

Timing is a tricky problem and probably more of an art than a science. I think in most cases you're aiming for one sure armored kill with the hope of getting one or two more. But you have to get that one kill or your gun has failed. So I'd suggest the ideal time might be when you have one AFV in LOS as a fairly sure first shot kill and maybe another one right near it (to limit gun traverse) and in LOS or about to roll into LOS during the course of the turn in which you open fire.

Sometimes 3 or 4 tanks (or more) roll into view all at once. In that case, you might want to wait till all but one or two tanks exit LOS. But if they're not going to leave LOS any time soon, you may have to take your best shot and hope you can get one or maybe two before they kill you. Ultimately you can't wait too long or the enemy infantry will be on top of you before you can get any shot off.

I've tried dropping on-board mortar smoke in front of a AT gun to mask it after it gets off a killer shot or two, but have never actually managed to make that work. Either the smoke arrives too late or the smoke plumes are just too small.

[Bonxa]

I like to deploy my AT assets so that many cover the same area. Combine AT-guns, tanks and zooks/shrecks. Then when a nice portion of the enemy force has entered your killing ground you open fire with just about everything you've got. The multiple targets presented to the enemy can be very disturbing and you're practically guarateed to make quite a few kills. Also, if you pull this of, the psycological effect is tremendous. In a combind arms battle, losing your AFVs as the attacker can ruin anyones day.

If this kind of things is possible of course depends on the map and the number of AT assets at your disposal. When I get to pick my forces myself I like to spend a good portion of the points on tank killing stuff because of the reasons above.

[Shipmonkey25]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by redwolf hates artillery:

In addition to the good advise:

- I noted that the Bofors is very easy to spot, even when not firing. I'm not sure why that is. The German AA guns seem especially hard to spot when firing, I guess that spotting probability is connected to the calibre and maybe muzzle flashes/dust

<hr></blockquote>

The German AA guns I've seen are not much bigger than a 50cal mg once they're in position. The US Bofors though, are huge by comparison, high profiles.

[Redwolf]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by KarlXII:

I like to deploy my AT assets so that many cover the same area.

<hr></blockquote>

Hm, to cover the whole approach area you'd have to have a lot of that stuff and at the same time you must be willing to sacrifice them in good LOS (which works both ways).

Another problem is that the better AT guns which can penetrate any enemy AFVs are way expensive. You cannot buy enough of them to guard against different forms of attack this way.

And as I said above, I am not so convinced anymore that it is a good idea to let them flood into your killzone in most terrain. You need a very good killzone like two subsequenct ridge with you infantry reverse-slope on the forward one and the guns in the depression or forward-slope behind. In normal terrain it seems questionable to me. If you open early, you have less risk of getting spotted, you delay and you may waste more of her artillery.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>

In a combind arms battle, losing your AFVs as the attacker can ruin anyones day.

If this kind of things is possible of course depends on the map and the number of AT assets at your disposal. When I get to pick my forces myself I like to spend a good portion of the points on tank killing stuff because of the reasons above.<hr></blockquote>

And if the attacker doesn't come with tanks?

[Olle Petersson]

I have big problems with the keyhole theory.

1) The enemy may very well never get in LOS at all, or do so only beyond effective range.

2) They may move directly towards my gun, making it ineffective against the thick frontal armour.

3) They may move across the arc, only exposed for a very short while so that my gun crew have time for one shot only, at best, with a fair chance/risk of missing altogether.

No, the optimum placement, if feasible, is to have a killzone with multiple ATGs firing from different angles. Thereby at least one ATG will have flank shots available.

Cheers

Olle

[JasonC]

Keyhole works best with something that can reposition itself, yes. But interlocking keyhole areas can work fine. Also, some may misunderstand the practical cone width involved in keyholing. It is not meant to the taken so literally that your LOS across the field is only 10m wide.

You generally want a cone of about 30 degrees of angle, sometimes 45. You can adjust the visible angle by how close the gun position is to the obstacles that form the sides of the keyhole. Deeper back narrows the cone, closer to the gap between the obstacles widdens it out.

This is still quite different from "up" deployments with fields of fire of 120 to 180 degrees. The number of enemy able to see your gun position at the moment you open fire will be dramatically reduced, which is the idea. But it is not like the enemy is going to cross the whole cone in 5 seconds - at 500 yards, the sighting cone will be hundreds of yards across.

See, when you maximize your LOS footprint you are doing two things. You do raise the probability that your gun will get off a shot at something, yes. But you also raise the return fire it will encounter immediately afterward. And you only need the first to be high enough to actually get kill shots. You don't want always want the second to be high, because it will reduce the life expectancy of your gun, after opening up, to a matter of seconds (or occasionally about 2 minutes).

When you narrow the sighting cone, you are reducing the chance that an enemy enters it an gives you a shot. But if you choose it wisely, and especially if you interlock more than one, you can often be pretty sure *somebody* is going to come into your sighting picture - or into somebodies. And you don't need half a dozen targets, don't want them really (because you wouldn't live long enough to kill them, if they can all see you). One or two will serve.

Interlocking then helps in a second way. Not only did somebody have to cross one of your LOS lines, but after you outshoot those (few) intruders, the interlocking lines are still there. Intruders still can't get past. They can expended arty ammo from out of LOS to neutralize one of the guns, yes. But that costs them firepower too - it is part of the "return" the guns brought. Or they can avoid the sighting cone of the spotted gun. Fine, but if you set up your interlocking cones right, that means they will run into the sight picture of another gun - which isn't spotted yet.

Overall, you should wind up "trading" 2 guns for the cost of either 1-2 enemy tanks and much of an artillery module, with your other gun surviving, or for 2-4 enemy tanks. That is a succesful exchange, especially for the cheaper ATGs.

Whether to use keyholing depends on your overall defensive plan, of course. If you only have one capable PAK, then as I said you are basically forced to place it somewhere with a wide LOS, because it is your only long range AT asset. Then you hope that the enemy only has 1-2 real tanks. As soon as you have 2, though, there are other options besides "up" positioning.

[Patgod]

my biggest problem with AT guns is not placement. its using them at the right time. i tend to keep them in reserve as a surprise. sometimes this works great, like the nme sees some big cat of mine and goes to flank it. just to find an ATG going "sorry sucka" but all too often i keep them out of the fight till its too late. the big problem is that i know if i have a nice big one(field gun, or large bore atg) i will be eating at the very least arty in a turn or 2. so its basicly shoot then die even if its well positioned.

[D'arcy Montague]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by KarlXII:

and you're practically guarateed to make quite a few kills.<hr></blockquote>

Guffaw! That's the funniest thing I think I've ever read on this forum. Ahh... Guaranteed kill's (pauses to wipe the tear away his eye).Hang on a minute, I'll have to get a glass of water before I get all hysterical and end up with the colly-wobbles.

[Silvio Manuel]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Patgod:

my biggest problem with AT guns is not placement. its using them at the right time. the big problem is that i know if i have a nice big one(field gun, or large bore atg) i will be eating at the very least arty in a turn or 2. so its basicly shoot then die even if its well positioned.<hr></blockquote>

Killing a 115pt+ tank and hopefully getting your opponent to waste arty for at 65-100 pt ATG is pretty decent to me.

[Redwolf]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

Killing a 115pt+ tank and hopefully getting your opponent to waste arty for at 65-100 pt ATG is pretty decent to me.<hr></blockquote>

I dunno, if we are talking big guns here.

Too often I had bigger AT guns shoot things that a smaller gun could have killed as well. The other way round, I got quite some guns with 2" mortars, which is not a big waste.

For the defender, you have to knock out 1.5 times as many points as the attacker, but for individual units you have to take into account that you have to compensate for some units you need and will not have a 1.5 knockout chance, namely artillery. So in reality you need more like a knockout rate of 2:1 and that is hard to read with big AT guns.

Big howitzers or the 150mm infantry guns are almost never worth the points, from what I've seen.

Small guns are nice, and flak guns extremly deadly.

[Lah]

Get veteran AT guns.

*Important* Have them with a HQ unit that has a double stealth bonus and a combat bonus or more, (the ? and lightning strike icons, etc).

Find a patch of trees that can see the most of the battlefield as possible, forget this keyhole nonesense.

Place them not at the front of the treeline but further in, this makes them harder to be spotted and gives better cover.

Also get a couple veteran on-map mortars to take your opponents AT guns out, ideally in transport.

[Redwolf]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Lah:

Get veteran AT guns.

<hr></blockquote>

Good advise.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>

*Important* Have them with a HQ unit that has a double stealth bonus and a combat bonus or more, (the ? and lightning strike icons, etc).

<hr></blockquote>

Sorry, the combat bonus does not raise the hit probability of AT fire. It improves the precision for on-map mortars, but I'm pretty sure AT guns fire on their own. Would have to test, though.

I find extra morale more desireable since most unattended AT guns will be abanonded soon.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>

Find a patch of trees that can see the most of the battlefield as possible, forget this keyhole nonesense.

Place them not at the front of the treeline but further in, this makes them harder to be spotted and gives better cover.

<hr></blockquote>

That is not a good idea. The hit probablity drops drastically when placing them deeper in woods. Still, you get spotted when shooting, so all this does is throwing away your sure kills before the mortars rain down (er - the shells rain down).

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>

Also get a couple veteran on-map mortars to take your opponents AT guns out, ideally in transport.<hr></blockquote>

Agreed.

But the best anti-anti-tan-gun unit is flak gun. The extreme precision makes any enemy gun in LOS dead right after being spotted. A had a Bofors kill a full row of small Axis guns.

[Lah]

Redwolf, The most important HQ bonus I meant was the stealth, and being back in the trees my opponents often complain about not knowing what hit them

I didn't know about the combat modifier not affecting AT guns though.

Still, I prefer guns back in woods as they seem to get something before being KO, just gotta keep them hidden till the right moment.

[Redwolf]

I just ran a test because I wasn't sure whether I tested the non-bonus of combat for AT guns myself or posted hearsay.

A combat bonus HQ does not improve the performance of an AT gun.

I was confused because mortars get improved, however, mortars only get improved from HQs when using them as spotters for indirect fire. Direct fire precision always and only depends on the quality and placement of the firing unit itself.

[ 12-30-2001: Message edited by: redwolf ]</p>

[Caesar]

How accurate is all this advice from a real life perspective. While I have little doubt it will work in the game (I shall be finding out very soon) is this how it was done in real life. When I have used AT guns so far I have given them as wide a view as possible while trying to give them some sort of tree/rough cover. This seemed like the obvious thing to do until I first fired at something and almost every thing my oponent possessed was unleashed upon my poor AT gun. In real life are keyholes sought? Do AT gunners expect to die soon after they open up. It seems to me that the AT guns die rather easily.

[Redwolf]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Caesar:

How accurate is all this advice from a real life perspective.

<hr></blockquote>

Soso. Absolute spotting makes thinsg very hard for guns in CMBO.

On top of that, the foxholes in CMBO are very weak, a real-life AT gun crew would be in serious trouble from their own command after delivering such a crappy work. In real life, AT guns could also be placed in building.

Then, you don't have pre-measured distances, which would kind of make TRPs for AT guns, raising the hit chance for enemy vehicles around them drastically. And every AT gun crew would do that, no matter how short the time is. If there's 15 minutes for CMBO - style foxhole, there is time to walk to the treeline to count the steps (assuming you had a tank hunter units without a range finder - unlikely).

Then, CMBO guns put deeper into woods suffer a substancial hit chance drop, I don't think that is a useful feature.

In real life, there was also substancial difficulty to get artillery or mortar fire on identified gun positions. Attacking tank units broken through the first defense screen andthen running into a real AT line would often have to rely on nothing but their own guns and MGs to get rid of the guns. This is for a number of reasons, slacky observers, non-trust of artillery towards tank crews spotting for them, non-availablity of artillery or ammo thereof after preparation barrage, already outrun the range of artillery, artillery just moving to keep up, non-trust of tank crew towards artillerymen not to hit their tanks, being unsatisfied with effect of artillery on single guns (does that sound familiar to any CMBOer?) or simply the urge not too loose 3 or 5 minutes waiting for the arty, which could mean the enemy SP TDs can move up behind the line. I have quite a number of accounts in this line, especially from Kursk.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>

In real life are keyholes sought?

<hr></blockquote>

Yes, but wider than in CMBO. More like 90 degrees to the front (45 left, 45 right), not the 30 or so you want in CMBO. Still, they want to have a complete LOS or LOF block from areas they are not interested in.

And often they are very alone. A lot of accounts talk about single AT guns backing up a company, but a tank hunter unit deliberately placed in the path of attacking tanks would have quite a number of guns. Especially the Russians are prone to do that, first with Pakfronts, then Paknests.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>

Do AT gunners expect to die soon after they open up.

<hr></blockquote>

Yes.

Two good sources are one Soviet account on the Web, named "our barrels

are long, our lifes are short" or so, probably on the Russian military

zone, and a rather new book "Panzerjaeger: Tank Hunter" by William

B. Folkestad, Bernhard Averbeck. I commented on that book in another

thread, if you do a search for the authro's name you'll get it.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>

It seems to me that the AT guns die rather easily.<hr></blockquote>

Except for the foxholes not god enough part it seems to me that the CMBO model of gun abanondation and knockout is fine, only considering the moment something shoots at it, not how it comes that someone shoots at it.

But very generally speaking, CMBO forces are just too good at many battlefield activities. The amount of coordination you see is completely out of bounds. Granted, it is fun and it is challenging to get all the arms coordinated, and it still tells the talented or hard-learning CMBO player from the Quake kid, but it is not realistic.

A real-life gun crew opening up on a single tank, and 30-60 seconds later seeing that tank smoke-covered from two tanks out of gun LOS to the left and right shooting smoke shells precise by the meter into the shot path, at the same time 3 mortars from all over the area firing indirect from behind houses spotted by by a 2+ combat and 2+ steath HQ which will 3 minutes later lead an AT team round the flank, the spotting rounds from the 155mm module which was permanently shifting and adjusting since the beginning of the game already creeping up, not to speak of the 6 half-squads and 2 platoons suddenly running towards the gun position from nowhere (and running through MG-covered open fields), overrunning the gun with its useless LMG bodybuard

... is not *really* resembling the realistic situation which is more like: oh ****, we are three guns in this terrain arc, and there are 17 tanks. All the tanks approached with their turrets already turned to the woods we are in, and the two forwards tanks spray they area with MG fire already. Luckily, their infantry is showing them long noses from far behind, with the tanks still thinking they are right between them and they have zero chance of getting artillery, much less artillery which hits us.

[apex]

A note, this doesn't work in QBs but may be useful for scenario designers: You may place an AT gun in a building if you place the gun first and then put a building on top of it.

apex

[Charlie Rock]

A few years back I spent some time in an anti-tank platoon, outfitted with TOW missile launchers. Generally speaking we preferred not to dismount them and fight like anti-tank guns, as there was a threat of being overrun by tanks, artillery, or dismounts.

The preference was to fight mounted, with the launcher on top of a humvee light truck, and use tophat-lowsky type tactics. That was effective.

A problem with the TOW was that it makes a slight rattle-like sound which can be heard by infantry. We liked to have a platoon of infantry to our front, 100 meters or so, to protect us from grunts, and we could kill tanks. Infantry liked it when the TOW was dismounted, as they didn't trust us to not drive off should the evil tankers get too close. Natural suspicion, I suppose. Another problem was that if you fight mounted and maneuver around, you could move too far from your dismounts and get sniped by infantry.

The Field Manual for AT platoons, FM 7-91, has what is called "The Fundamentals for Antiarmor Unit Employment" They are:

Provide Mutual Support

Provide Security

Strive for Flank Shots

Use TOW standoff (Not really applicable)

Use cover and concealment

Employ in Depth

Employ as part of a combined arms team.

My preference for getting flank shots is to have cover to the front, and shoot to the flank. The easiest way to do this is hide behind a building, in woods or trees, preferably, and shoot to the side of it. Shoot at an angle across the map. If the enemy is attacking from your 12 oclock, seek shots to the 10 or 2.

Use hunter killer teams. Always put a looker out to the front with good spotting qualities, like a sharpshooter, so your hidden AT crew knows what is coming. The spotter sees it coming, and the gun gets off the shot. This is also important so if the crew knows the type of tank it is facing, it will know in the Allied case whether to fire tungsten or not.

I have noticed that the AI will buy a 75mm howitzer or something like that, and I end up wasting artillery on it because I am paranoid about sending up a sherman against a PAK 40. I haven't tried it, but it works against me a lot.

One of the best advantages of AT guns is that unless you are asleep at the switch, you will get off the first shot. You have to make it count. Use 76mms against the heavy german cats, and keep US tanks in reserve. Try and strip the heavy stuff away first, and it will give you freedom of maneuver later if the Germans push it with MK IV's and STUG's. Identify the bad guys avenue of approach: open terrain routes that lead into your position. Hide one gun on either side of that route, so either way a tank turns one gun or the other will have a flank shot. In snowy or rainy conditions go for a 90 degree line of sight to the major roads---off road movement will bog down the tankers and they will be more predictable.

Sometimes you have to get ruthless. Try having some half squads open up on enemy armor, or even area fire in it's direction, to get the tank to turn the turret and fire some main gun rounds and draw fire. This can set up a flank shot for an AT gun from the other side. In scattered woods battlefields, you need a field of fire 200+ meters or so, IMHO. If you have something that is too close, escorting infantry could spot you before you get off a shot.

If fighting as the Germans a good combination is to hide a jagdpanzer or cat behind a house on the right and/or left edge of the map, shooting toward the center. They will have good sloped armor properties for a head on duel. The predictable response is for the Americans to hug the edge and use speed to run around for a flank shot. In this case a PAK to the rear of the German tank, covering it's flank will provide a nasty surprise. The panzer or jagdpanzer has the primary sector of fire, and the PAK has the alternate. This is a cheap way to cover the flanks of turretless vehicles, especially if they have the front armor to be successful in a long range duel, you'll want them in the fight early.

Generally speaking, other than infantry man portable weapons, most AT weapons nowadays are mounted on lightweight chassis. Digging in a TOW is what we call a DIP mission: Die In Place. Not too popular. The analogy would be that a Marder or M10 is much less vulnerable than a PAK 40 or 76mm. You can run away from the arty and infantry.

Hope that helps.

[Redwolf]

Very interesting post, thanks. One question:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Charlie Rock:

The preference was to fight mounted, with the launcher on top of a humvee light truck, and use tophat-lowsky type tactics. That was effective.

[...]

Generally speaking, other than infantry man portable weapons, most AT weapons nowadays are mounted on lightweight chassis. Digging in a TOW is what we call a DIP mission: Die In Place. Not too popular. The analogy would be that a Marder or M10 is much less vulnerable than a PAK 40 or 76mm. You can run away from the arty and infantry.

]<hr></blockquote>

The reason most people prefer a towed gun over a vehicle is that vehicles are easy to spot and very vulnerable to direct fire once spotted. In CMBO and I think that applies to real life as well. A moving vehicle, even when slow, will be spotted instantly. And there are a lot of weapons which have a decent chance of scoring a hit within the first shot(s) on a vehicle, and everything in that vehicle will be destroyed. Whereas a crew-served weapon in a foxhole is harder to spot and harder to destroy.

I wonder where that discrpancy comes from. Would you think that your descriptions are for bigger and longer engagements?

[Charlie Rock]

I agree that in CMBO and the real world vehicles are easier to spot than guns.

In any defensive scheme, you try to dig in vehicles. The difference between a dug in vehicle in CMBO and real life is this:

In CMBO a vehicle is dug in so that the turret is exposed, and once there, effectively it can't move.

In real life the "hole" is sloped in the back so you can put the vehicle in reverse and drive out. There are also two levels. The first level is with the turret exposed-hull down, same as CMBO. For a TOW on a humvee the only exposed part is the TOW itself (a 3x3x3 foot block of metal) and a piece of the turret roof. There is a second level with the vehicle completely underground, where unless you had a height advantage, in CMBO terms you cannot be seen. Ideally the infantry is pulling security, with one gun "up" in the platoon, and everyone else is in full defilade hiding.

Real life crews operate in a way that CMBO cannot replicate. A good driver will drive his vehicle "up" into hull down position, and as soon as a shot is off will drive back down into reverse, and reloading is done in the bottom of the hole. You will stick two tent stakes somewhere so the driver goes full tilt, back and forth, no further "up" than necessary to clear the gun barrel, and "down" no further than necessary to get out of sight.

I would also say that real life crews that are well trained will generate as many TRPs as they can, time available. At long ranges you can drive out to the spot or walk out and back, pacing it off. I wish TRPs were cheaper.

Digging these holes requires bulldozer support, which are far more common nowadays then back then.

I agree that guns in dismounted mode "hide" much better.

[Warmaker]

Just a few basic things to remember about ATGs:

*Generally speaking, larger calibre guns have a slower traverse than the smaller ones. Compare the traverse of the PaK43 88mm gun to the all-purpose PaK40 75mm gun and you'll see a whole agonizing world of difference. If you can't help but posting an ATG to cover a wide arc, bear this in mind.

*If the expected engagement ranges are going to be pretty short (say 200m or less) it may be a good idea to get a healthy mix of light ATGs (50mm/57mm) and medium ATGs (PaK40 75mm/U.S. 76mm). Everyone already knows those medium ATGs are now much more deadly at those ranges but the lighter ATGs benefit too. With careful positioning and patience engaging enemy armor on the flanks/rear at those insane ranges give the pea shooters the roar of their larger brethren. To add to this, they have a higher ROF than the larger ones, and just as importantly, the light ATGs are quite cheap. Having those medium ATGs around is insurance against heavy armor (Pershings, Churchills, Big Cats, etc.).

[ 01-03-2002: Message edited by: Warmaker ]

[ 01-03-2002: Message edited by: Warmaker ]</p>