AT Guns vs Tanks duel

[ferdinand]

[i did a quick search but...]

once again I turn to your collective wisdom :

reading this board, i noticed some accounts of duel of tanks vs AT guns.

I'm a bit surprised since my first reaction when meeting an AT gun is to withdraw my tanks. I was convinced than in such a duel the AT gun, who's lower and camouflaged, would always win.

Seting aside the cases where the AT gun is unable to penetrate the tank's armor, is it standard practice to use one or more tanks to engage AT guns ?

If it is in the game, is it historical, or a quirk due to the spotting rules ?

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by ferdinand:

Seting aside the cases where the AT gun is unable to penetrate the tank's armor, ...

Unfortunately, I've found this to be the most common case...

I usually don't use the heaviest ATGs available, but my opponents seem to usually pick the heaviest frontal armour available.

"-Hit the flanks!" you'll say.

I try to do that, but since the opponent prefer to keep his tanks way back. The best angle I can reach is about 45 degrees, and that's at some 800m range or so...

Once a gun starts shooting, it pretty soon get spotted. When it's spotted it gets a lot of attention and gets suppressed. Then it's only a matter of time before it's knocked out...

Regarding spotting ATGs and such, I'd say it's pretty well modelled as it is, possibly with the exception that it's too hard to spot firing recoilless weapons.

OTOH I've found that stationary vehicles in "Hiding" are way too easily spotted at setup.

I'm working on a historical scenario with a couple of AFVs hiding in some scattered trees.

- They were camouflaged with nets and foliage, and had their engines idle or shut off.

- The enemy knew they were there somewhere, but were unable to spot any individual vehicle.

- When I set this up in CM, the attacker immediately got full information of every AFV, including troop quality!

Obviously I'll have to use ahistorical setup positions for the AFVs to get the historical effect...

Cheers

Olle

[Maastrictian]

Taking on ATG with MBTs is definately a bad idea. Unless you have a king tiger or a perishing or something that can take the hit. If you have a number of tanks with LOS to the ATG you might as well let them fire at will. They will likely take it out without taking more than one casualty. But they typical ATG situation is where a tank has just rounded a bend and is destroyed by an ATG. There is no sence trying to "rush" the ATG with your other tanks that are currently out of LOS. You will just loose another tank. Hit the gun with artillery (either on or off board) or close assault it with infantry (if you can get them into position).

--Chris

[Pak40]

If I encounter an AT gun then I use my tanks against it as a last resort.

Typically I try these methods first:

1. kill it with artillery, either on board or off

2. I'll be patient and work my infantry to the AT gun to kill it. This depends how far back the gun is and how well protected it is.

3. AA guns or armored cars with 20mm guns work fairly well against AT guns. They have high accuracy and high rate of fire and can usually knock out an AT gun before it is able to rotate towars my unit. Also, these units are cheaper to sacrifice than a tank.

4. lay offboard mortar smoke on the AT gun, making it useless for 2-3 turns while I move around my armor assets into better supporting fire areas.

If you do choose to use your tanks to take out an AT gun then be prepared to lose at least one tank (sometimes you have no choice due to ambushes and terrain layout. I suggest the following ):

1. Take out AT guns one at a time if possible.

2. Use two or more tanks against it. Spread those two tanks out so that the AT gun has to rotate a lot in order to kill both. AT guns rotate so slowly that it should be dead before killing the second tank.

3. If not too risky, make sure your tanks are unbuttoned. This will help them spot the AT gun quicker.

4. Put as much supressing fire on the AT guns as possible in order to make the crew take longer to rotate, fire, spot, and reload. Mortars and Mgs are great units for this job.

5. The best tank vs. AT gun technique that I can think of is this: Spread your two tanks as far apart as possible but where they will both have LOS to the gun(obviously move the tanks near to these spots while out of LOS of the gun. The best spots are just behind the crest of a hill.) Then use the PAUSE command on both tanks twice(30 sec delay), then use the fast command to move the tank into LOS. Each tank should be able to get off one round before the end of the turn, assuming the tanks have spotted the gun. On the NEXT turn issue the reverse command to bring the tank back to it's hiding spot, they should both be able to get off another round before reversing. The idea here is to allow only 20-25 seconds of time where the AT gun has a LOS to the tanks. Since AT guns rotate so slowly, then they will rarely be able to get a shot off. You may have to do this for 2-4 turns before killing it but it should work well. Use techniques 1-4 in conjunction with this technique. Also, if possible, use a 105mm SP gun.

Experiment with playing Cat and Mouse with AT guns. If the AT gun is pointing straight at tank A but not at tank B, then engage it with tank B first, then use tank A 15-30 seconds later. The AT gun will spend most of its time rotating.

[Skipper]

A far away AT gun can in some situations be dealt with by a tank in the following way:

1. a couple of MGs or an onboard mortar or a rifle platoon gets it well suppressed (about two turns).

2. a tank pops up from behind a ridge and puts some he on it. 3-4 shots usually do the job. 1-2 with 105mm.

Olle:

you should be putting your small caliber AT guns on the flanks. Or something like this: forest, SMG platoon in the middle, AT gun just behind.

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by Skipper:

Olle:

you should be putting your small caliber AT guns on the flanks.

But I do put my "small calibre" PaK40 on the flanks.

The problem is that the opponent move his tanks down the flanks as well and that very slowly, so either I'll have to engage the Churchill 15cm frontal armour at 500m on the same map flank, or engage the side armour at 1000m on the other flank (provided there's LOS).

Cheers

Olle

[Guest Martin Cracauer]

Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

OTOH I've found that stationary vehicles in "Hiding" are way too easily spotted at setup.

I'm working on a historical scenario with a couple of AFVs hiding in some scattered trees.

- They were camouflaged with nets and foliage, and had their engines idle or shut off.

CM should probably give the vehicles of the defender the equivalent of the foxholes for infantry, the vehicles should be assumed to be camouflaged until they move.

Engines off is a more delicate issue, since sometimes the turret is driven by the main engine (eg. Panther). You can turn the turret manually, but that opens a can of worms when the TacAI should switch the engine on and off. See threads about Panther turret speed, the speed depended even on RPM and the slow turret of the Panther in CMBO is assumed to be a middle value.

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by Martin Cracauer:

Engines off is a more delicate issue, since sometimes the turret is driven by the main engine (eg. Panther). You can turn the turret manually, but that opens a can of worms when the TacAI should switch the engine on and off.

In the specific battle I'm recreating the turrets were indeed turned by hand (very slowly and cumbersome), at least initially. Once spotted they started their engines...

I'm not requesting the game to take any notion of this though, just the hiding thing.

As it is it seems like TDs have a huge disadvantage in CM compared to real life, if you try to use historical tactics...

Cheers

Olle

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

I'm working on a historical scenario with a couple of AFVs hiding in some scattered trees.

- They were camouflaged with nets and foliage, and had their engines idle or shut off.

- The enemy knew they were there somewhere, but were unable to spot any individual vehicle.

- When I set this up in CM, the attacker immediately got full information of every AFV, including troop quality!

Obviously I'll have to use ahistorical setup positions for the AFVs to get the historical effect...

Cheers

Olle

In my experience, Olle, the way to get the effect you're after is to place your tanks just far enough back in the scattered trees that a black line begins to show when you check LOS, looking out from trees. This way, you're assured the enemy can't see you. You will

have to creep forward a bit (into their LOS) when you want to fire, but can chose a favorable moment to attack, then reverse back into further into the trees, out of LOS.

This may not be exactly the effect you have in mind, but might be pretty close. You could also try allowing the tanks to dig in, but in this case close enough to see out. I'm not sure how this would affect enemy ability to see them, since I've never actually seen this effect in practice--but it's in the manual.

[CombinedArms]

Oops, double post

[This message has been edited by CombinedArms (edited 03-29-2001).]

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

In my experience, Olle, the way to get the effect you're after is to place your tanks just far enough back in the scattered trees that a black line begins to show when you check LOS, looking out from trees.

Actually, what I've found out is that I don't have to back that far (but almost).

Historically they were pretty close to the treeline, though, and had a clear LOS to the attackers approaches.

As I noted before, when setting up an ambush, you typically want LOS about 500m and spring the ambush at 300m. In the meantime the enemy is not to notice your existance or position.

Cheers

Olle