Prob just me but are AT guns worth the points

[Tontoman]

Probably just me but after CMBO where in some unit choice rules AT guns had to be have some transportation (to add to the cost), I'm wondering if they are worth the points in CMBB.

Maybe it's just my usage but so many times I'v had an AT get a hit or two, not get a knockout and never gets another shot due to suppression.

Quite different from the 2-3 tank kills from one ambush in CMBO.

I like the difference but I'm not sure if they are worth the points now? Better to buy AT armor?

T.

[killmore]

Seems like you buy big slow rate of fire guns.

If you buy 45mm At gun you will get couple of shots off

[Gaylord Focker]

If you played me, you'd realise how cost effective anti-tank guns can be in no time at all.

[Andrew H.]

It depends on a lot of factors - what time period, what side, what type of gun, and how you use it. I think that a couple of medium AT guns (45mm, 50mm) are well worth the price if you use them properly - i.e., set them in a hidden location where they are able to get flank shots, and then use them only to take flank shots, especially against isolated tanks.

They don't work as well when you use them to try and take on tanks head on, though, especially if there are lots of things around that can spot the AT guns.

[Gaylord Focker]

I like the 37mm in early war as well, in fact, i like how all the anti-tank guns are modeled.

If you use them right under favorable conditions, good things can happen for you, but don't ever come to expect anything in the thick of a battle.

[Fishu]

AT-Guns are excellent in ambushes.

Enemy can see tanks from distance, even if you've hid them behind trees or in scattered trees, but try finding dug-in AT-Gun (or from woods) before it fires.

This is very good when trying to lure enemy armour into close ambushes, where the armour will most definately loose to concentrated fire from AT-guns.

From longer range it's bit harder, when AT-Guns has more chance to miss and with lesser penetration, but from up close they are excellent.

Problem with those in CM is that you can't recrew abandoned AT-Guns.

Often the crew leaves their gun even without losses and thats it.. no matter how sensible it would be to recrew the intact, but abandoned cannon.

[Tontoman]

It's small AT's I'm using (37 mm) VS light armor. What I'm finding is that if you ambush 2+ tanks (they both have LOS to you) you are probably only going to get one (and that's 50-50). I get a couple of clean penetrations and then I'm suppressed and later killed and if I'm lucky one of those shots did knock it out. I'm playing small assaults to test the ambush arcs and other things and have found that a 20mm AC is better than a 37mm AC as it can be moved around and (with luck) ambush single tanks at a time avoiding the deathclock locking you to an already dead tank while it's buddy kills you.

I like the death clock to but I can't help it that I'm already thinking of ways to avoid it.

Guess what I would like (against multiple targets)

is that after a good penetration or two, if the enemy tank is NOT responding (firing back/moving) then have the AI switch to another target that is KNOWN to be still alive. If it's firing/moving sure keep punching hole in it my all means .

If both are stopped but not visably KO'd then keep pumping the shells into either one.

I just don't like the AT or tank pumping the 8th shell into a tank while it's buddy calmly lines you up. If I was a gunner I'd switch as soon as the original target ceased to respond.

T.

[ October 16, 2002, 02:13 AM: Message edited by: Tontoman ]

[Eden Smallwood]

Originally posted by Tontoman:

Guess what I would like (against multiple targets)

is that after a good penetration or two, if the enemy tank is NOT responding (firing back/moving) then have the AI switch to another target that is KNOWN to be still alive.

YES YES YES YES!!!!

It was not uncommon for me when playing Citadel to have an AT gun come out of hiding to plaster one specific tank and get literally a half dozen KOs on that tank, while a half dozen other live tanks are right next to it...

If it looks like a nice hit... better move on, because those other turrets are turning. Maybe sometimes you would want the behaviour it has now, if... if the other targets would require a big change in targetting? But when there's a big group right in one spot, it just seems like your only chance is going to be to spread that love around on everyone.

Eden

[JonS]

Originally posted by Tontoman:

...Guess what I would like (against multiple targets) is that after a good penetration or two, if the enemy tank is NOT responding (firing back/moving) then have the AI switch to another target that is KNOWN to be still alive. If it's firing/moving sure keep punching hole in it my all means . If both are stopped but not visably KO'd then keep pumping the shells into either one...

FWIW I've seen the AI exhibit exactly the behaviour you are after. Might have been a freak occurence, but it impressed the pus out of me when I saw it.

Regards

JonS

P.S. Eden, I loved you 312 AAR Friendly advice: never split your force like that

[Cameroon]

Originally posted by JonS:

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

...Guess what I would like (against multiple targets) is that after a good penetration or two, if the enemy tank is NOT responding (firing back/moving) then have the AI switch to another target that is KNOWN to be still alive. If it's firing/moving sure keep punching hole in it my all means . If both are stopped but not visably KO'd then keep pumping the shells into either one...

FWIW I've seen the AI exhibit exactly the behaviour you are after. Might have been a freak occurence, but it impressed the pus out of me when I saw it.

Regards

JonS

P.S. Eden, I loved you 312 AAR Friendly advice: never split your force like that </font>

[Pascal DI FOLCO]

Originally posted by Tontoman:

Guess what I would like (against multiple targets)

is that after a good penetration or two, if the enemy tank is NOT responding (firing back/moving) then have the AI switch to another target that is KNOWN to be still alive. If it's firing/moving sure keep punching hole in it my all means .

If both are stopped but not visably KO'd then keep pumping the shells into either one.

I just don't like the AT or tank pumping the 8th shell into a tank while it's buddy calmly lines you up. If I was a gunner I'd switch as soon as the original target ceased to respond.

T.

Very good, necessary, indispensable feature that should be in a patch ! The current system is totally unrealistic, a couple of penetration should be enough for switching to a visibly non-damaged other target !

It's not much of a problem with big guns (slower ROF, more explosions occuring), but for small stuff such as 45mm AT it makes them pretty useless vs more than 1 Panzer...

[Sardaukar]

I just had a veteran 75 mm Pak 40 to KO 1 IS-2 and 5 T-34/85 M44s. I'd say that was very cost-effective.

Cheers,

M.S.

[K_Tiger]

Try to put two or more guns together or small ones (37mm, 2,8mm) in front of your "Killers" like the 75mm.

I saw it to often..and do it the same way, if one gun unhides, your opponent will alwys masses his tanks behind a hill and then start to attack the singel gun at once. I fyou have two smaller guns in front and a 75mm or greater as backup...you can easily make havoc on your ennemy.

I always start a mortar barrage, first with smoke, then with he....so with a little smokescreen..not all of the ennemy tanks have LOS to your guns.

[JRRRT]

AT guns of all types work best when hitting targets from multiple angles, say, from flank and behind simultaneously. That way, the target doesn't know where to respond w/counterfire OR if a group is attacked, the counterfire is divided...worked like crazy in the "Kursk" demo.

[Ex Bellator]

Possible obvious advice but try putting AT guns a little way back in woods and in command with commanders who have stealth bonuses (combat is nice as well).

Fire a few rounds and then hide. Seems to be working very well for me.

[Andreas]

AT Guns really need to come in batteries. A single gun won't do much good. They should also open up as a battery if at all possible.

Regarding switching even before the death-clock kicks in. Larger calibre guns do that now. See an 88 fire on a KV-1. If it gets a penetration it will switch to the next target, because the crew knows that a penetration is pretty much a guaranteed kill. With the smaller guns you can not rely on that. Hence the need for batteries.

What either of us would have done as a gunner on a single gun is neither here nor there, since that sort of deployment is bordering on the criminally incompetent. You get what you pay for - if you go for cheapo single guns with your left-over 36 points, you should not expect them to do a lot for you. You pay peanuts, you employ monkeys - as true in CMBB as it is in real life. If you are serious about your AT defense, you invest enough to get four to eight guns.

[Earl]

This is probably obvious, I use the small guns in pairs covering a single avenue of approach with good concealment to the front (e.g. behind a copse of trees or a house) so it's difficult to spot from the front. I set the one (or more) gun on each flank of the avenue of approach and use covered arcs to limit them to the designated kill zone. I try to limit the range of the covered arcs to something that should be lethal (never let them shoot as max range).

Ideally they will fire almost simultanously at the target, which will then normally pick one or the other gun to align its hull against, presenting a flank shot for the other gun.

Important to have infantry support in front also with limited covered arc range to provide protection but not unnecessarily give away the position.

[Silvio Manuel]

You can't let the enemy units (esp. infantry which tend to be numerous) get too close to your AT guns before you engage, otherwise you will be spotted/suppressed/routed too easily. And now since Tank MG's are actually effective, it pays doubly to engage far enough out that you have a chance of painting some rings on the barrel before they know where the fire is coming from.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Andreas:

AT Guns really need to come in batteries. A single gun won't do much good. They should also open up as a battery if at all possible.

Regarding switching even before the death-clock kicks in. Larger calibre guns do that now. See an 88 fire on a KV-1. If it gets a penetration it will switch to the next target, because the crew knows that a penetration is pretty much a guaranteed kill. With the smaller guns you can not rely on that. Hence the need for batteries.

What either of us would have done as a gunner on a single gun is neither here nor there, since that sort of deployment is bordering on the criminally incompetent. You get what you pay for - if you go for cheapo single guns with your left-over 36 points, you should not expect them to do a lot for you. You pay peanuts, you employ monkeys - as true in CMBB as it is in real life. If you are serious about your AT defense, you invest enough to get four to eight guns.

That makes sense.

More than that I mean that is Right ON! especially this part:

"You pay peanuts, you employ monkeys - as true in CMBB as it is in real life" he he very good.

I am have only played the demo so to comment here may be inappropriate but I LOVE the Death Clock, because it ADDS to the fog of war because you can't REALLY know if that AFV is playing dead or if they are in fact bailing out unless you see them bail out or the thing is in fact actually burning (that one is obvious).Andreas points out that 88mm crew knows to switch targets if it gets apenetration because they KNOW what an 88 mm penetration can do to the enemy tank. The complaints in this thread about smal caliber AT guns pumping rounds into what seem like dead tanks, proves the death clock is working perfectly, because that smaller caliber AT crew CANNOT know that tank is dead or dying so to continue to fire at it is the right thing to do. As Andreas points out the solution to this is NOT to change the game BUT to deploy more AT guns close together in the form of a battery and deploy them wisely so they can all work together, or use smoke rounds or combine the AT defence the ATR's or your own AFV's and or tank hunter teams as a distraction to those enemy AFV's ganging up on your AT gun.

I think (at least in the demo) the Death Clock works GREAT and it is one of the TRULY inovative features in CMBB!!

-tom w

[ October 16, 2002, 10:15 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Commissar]

It's just you. AT guns are extremely effective if you use them properly. The smaller caliber ones like the 57mm can be particularly nasty due to high rate of fire and good chances of penetration on the sides or even the front (depending on the vehicle, of course). If anything else, they are extremely annoying to whatever is being targeted and you have a good chance of damaging something.

Back in the early days of CMBO, I used to think the AT guns weren't worth it for the reasons you described. Then I decided to use them in a battle and their worth and effectiveness more than made up for their lack of mobility and protection in most cases.

Buy a pair and set up a crossfire in addition to other armor assets. If you setup properly, you'll see very pleasing results.

[ October 16, 2002, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: Commissar ]

[Redwolf]

AT guns are also effective when used to keep enemy armor away.

Few people will move armor into known AT gun positions. This means there are spots on the map where they cannot support their infantry against defenders and/or there will be spots where the defender can move his tanks freely.

As a German defender you also create another problem for a Soviet attacker, that of using his artillery with its slow response time. Whatever shoots at the AT gun cannot shoot at other things.

The attacker is under substancial time pressure in CMBB and he also gets nowhere without substancial fire support. So using your AT guns can be effective even if you don't actually shoot at the tanks.

[Mike W]

I'm 100% in favor of the deathclock, and I think not having it really detracted from CMBO. I haven't read many personal accounts of the war in Russia, but I have read a number of accounts relating to North Africa. One feature all of the writers note is pounding an enemy tank until (1) the crew bailed out, or (2) the tank brewed up. I don't recall reading of any instances where an enemy tank was simply hit, and another target chosen. I suspect that there may have been three reasons for this. First, it takes more time to aim at a new target than to put another round into the original tank. Second, it may be hard to tell how good a hit you got (in the heat of battle, can you tell if a shell actually penetrated). Third, "dead" tanks might come back to life at inconvenient moments. So, I'm all for the deathclock. If there is consideration as to "patching" the deathclock, I hope that it is made optional, rather than eliminated.

[Tontoman]

Thanks for the tips.

But the case I was talking about it's a SMALL attack so I could only afford one or two ATG s(expecially with the combined forces forcing you to spend points on fortifications). But with small battles and light armor buying 4 large ATGs is not an option.

The high rate of fire doesn't seem to make that much diff. Just means it pumps in an extra 6 shells even if the first was a KO instead of 3.

In CMBO it was more deadly as each quick shot could mean another dead tank. After 4 penetrations into a stopped non firing tank please switch to the other one that's just now lining me up. :eek:

I like the deathclock as it tones down what I thought were too effective ATGs (tanks always seemed overly fragile to me in CMBO) but I feel it's gone the other way. I'd like to keep the deathclock for sure, but would like to add an AI switch target if tank motion&firing have stopped.

I guess it's just the feeling I get when through good work I achive the desired ambush with multiple ememy tanks with their side armor to my ATG and I only net one tank. This happens more often (as far as I'v seen) than the good multi kill results. Maybe less of a prob in CM2 with individual spotting (instead of the borg variety we have now) slowing down the other tanks responses

T.

[ October 16, 2002, 06:45 PM: Message edited by: Tontoman ]