Small-mid caliber anti-tank gun use

[ashenman]

How does everyone use their weaker anti-tank guns? From maximum range or in short-range exchanges?

I've always favored a short-range ambush with 37, 50 and sometimes 75mm guns since that seems to be the only time they can score a kill without being taken out in the resulting high-explosive bombardment.

I've been watching what the AI does, and it likes to open fire at maximum range. I don't know if it's because the scenarios I played in (like the Wittman one) favor that kind of tactic, but it does seem to work. I lost a platoon of PzIVs and a pair of Tigers were immobilized.

[manchildstein (ii)]

with low caliber guns i consider it a success if they manage to expend all of their he against non-vehicular targets before themselves being knocked out or abandoned...

as for setup against vehicles, you want to set them up to where they can get a close-range side shot...

if you have 4 or more of them you want to put them in a position to all be firing at once... even when they fail to penetrate, a 'fusilade' of light antitank fire might cause the target vehicle to be abandoned...

another way to use light antitank is to give them long, but very limited (narrow) fields of fire... 'keyholing' them... this way they don't themselves get 'fusiladed' upon discovery by enemy units....

[Tarquelne]

I prefer to use them at looong range. Of course, they often don't work at that range, being the puny things they are. (Against a human, and on a BIG map it can be fun (and usefull) to fire several salvos from a "battery" and then use transport to move the guns elsewhere. Watch your opponent's arty and area fire rain down on an empty hilltop...)

The more I have compared to things that might fire back the more prone I am to fire them at long range.

When there are "spotters" close to the guns firing them at distant targets that can fire back (possibly along with the spotters) is a Bad Thing.

If I can't fire them at long range then I like the range to be very short. Hit changes well above 50%, Good or better kill chances - they may not get many shots off.

Ideally, if the map is quite large, I'll take some long shots, move the ATGs while the enemy is in "mid" range and then have a close range ATG ambush set up. But the battles where the map allows that are, in my expereince, bloody rare.