Ant Tank Guns Underrated in CMBB?

[captainkije]

My experience is that tanks fearlessly knock these out quickly once the gun reveals itself, even with the gun in a foxhole and holding its fire until the range and target facing is good. Without having any technical data to support this, it would seem that a towed AT gun deployed would have these advantages:

More room for the crew than inside a tank leading to a faster rate of fire.

More stable firing platform for higher accuracy.

Room for as much ammunition as HQ can provide.

Lower target profile than a tank making it harder to hit (excluding Flak 88, etc.).

I seem to have a dim memory from ASL of using at least three, better four or five tanks to take out an ATG, expecting to lose probably two. On the surface, this appears a better fit for historical reality.

Any thoughts?

[Der Kuenstler]

Remember guns and crews are exposed to HE shell bursts which tank crews are protected from. Guns in trees will suffer treeburst effects from mortars and die quicker.

For better success, put them just behind a high ridge and they are a bear to get rid of! Also a +2 morale, +2 combat HQ nearby will make them more deadly and harder to kill. Also, foxholes are not that great for protection. (44% exposure) Trenches work much better. (only 9% exposure)

The biggest advantage of a gun is stealth before firing and if I can trade one gun for one dead tank, that's a good trade, as guns only cost about 1/2-1/3 as much.

[Ratzki]

Yes, foxholes are to be avoided at all costs. Easy to spot and easy to get to what is inside. As Der K. said, get a good HQ nearby with LOS to your targets, this way the will get the morale bonus and targeting bous off the HQ with LOS. I find that stealth does not help with the larger guns that much and these are what you will mostly be using. And command range does not help either as the HQ should be reletively close in order to get the combat bonus if it has LOS to the target the gun is shooting at.
As for the other points, the AT guns will be using similar sights so should be equally accurate as their tank mounted guns are. But are not as stable a platform, ever watch one of these guns touch off a round, they kick like a horse and are not anchored all that well.
I have never looked at the amount of ammo compared to the same size gun in a tank. The crew would be expected to carry the bulk of the ammo from the truck/tractor to the gun and back again if the gun was forced to be moved. Often these guns were moved by hand/horse and deployed rapidly, specially the little AT guns. The crew would not want to pack up ammo, into crates/boxes after each move so might not want it all out every deployment. Just a thought.
It will have a lower target profile but as stated the crew is exposed to HE.

[herroberst]

The biggest shortfall to guns in CM is they are usually discovered far quicker than historical accounts suggest. I think it was Wittman that said he feared ATGs more than anything else because they were hard to see and acquire.

Nonetheless, I always go into battle with preferably three ATGs and I like the 57mm's which can pretty much take out anything. I sometimes will set up a PakFront of multiple guns which works well in that you can destroy all the armor showing before it can take apart the guns.

Of course a good opponent will always have mortars or artillery to take care of guns that are revealed.

Still, a good ambush weapon in my opinion and you can try to smoke the position, pull the gun back, limber it up and move it. I have successfully used that tactic before with light guns.

[Ratzki]

It does not help with QB and players choosing Vet or better mortars and guns. Those Vet mortars can drop a round into the top of a coffee can at 500m in about there 2-3 shot. The AT guns do not stand a chance. Add to this the player's ability to just click on a unit for ID, then couple this with total control of fire by all your units and the guns are usually not long for this world.
This is why I play with certain "rules" that myself and a couple of long time opponents use all the time. It just makes the game more realistic, of course you have to get your opponent to use them as well, wihich is sometimes met with resistance. Plus you have to trust that the other guy is playing by the rules.
We never click on an enemy unit, target by the NEXT TARGET only.
We only manually target with units that are in command (red line), Unless the unit has a radio like FO's and Tanks with radios, ect. This goes for area fire as well as direct fire.
Detailed Hits button off.
No holding over an enemy with the LOS on to get range, hit %, ect.
We do use the Gridded Terrrain mods.

All these make the play less reactive and it cuts down on the " you spot a gun on one side of the map and on your next orders, you manually target every available shooter to fire at this gun from one side of the map to another. It forces you to keep units in command and you never seem to have enough HQ's to be able to target manually all the time.
It's not for everyone, but if you want things to play out a little more like history would have it..... something has to be done. Just as easy a way, but not quite as effective is to allow no Vet or better mortars or make the QB selection for units be just quality MEDIUM for both sides. There are probably a couple other things that can be done, but this is all I can come up with off the top of my head and while my 4 year old daughter is braiding and putting bobby pins in my hair.

[Splork]

Ratzki - that's an intriguing set of rules, never played that way, but I bet it makes for quite an interesting game.

I haven't a clue as to whether AT guns are modeled appropriately according to historical factors, but I think DK kinda hit the nail on the head in regards to their modeling in terms of game balance - they tend to be priced fairly cheaply, so if they can take out one tank, they're more than worth it. If it ever gets more than one, that's a huge bonus.

My fear would be that any rules set that makes it harder to kill AT guns, while it might lead to "more historically accurate", it might also lead to an imbalance in the scoring, in that it makes a relatively cheap unit more powerful. Of course, I tend to mostly play QBs, where unit cost tends to be a bigger deal than in scenarios...

[Bear]

My experience is that tanks fearlessly knock these out quickly once the gun reveals itself, even with the gun in a foxhole and holding its fire until the range and target facing is good. Without having any technical data to support this, it would seem that a towed AT gun deployed would have these advantages:

More room for the crew than inside a tank leading to a faster rate of fire.

More stable firing platform for higher accuracy.

Room for as much ammunition as HQ can provide.

Lower target profile than a tank making it harder to hit (excluding Flak 88, etc.).

I seem to have a dim memory from ASL of using at least three, better four or five tanks to take out an ATG, expecting to lose probably two. On the surface, this appears a better fit for historical reality.

Any thoughts?

Yes, all except the fat ammo is right. The ammo is relative to the importance of the front and time before the action; then there's the right place-right time factor.
Go see our Gallery, see Kursk for a dramatic chain of AT combat. A good short book is Men Against Tanks, exciting and educational.