AT guns

[Rift]

I have played Close Combat for many years, from CC2 to the more modern CC LD, and I gotta be honest I love them all.

However the one thing that really annoys me is that AT guns in CC LD and to some degree in CC WAR are not particular good at the role they were designed to carry out.

As soon as I bring my guns to bear on any AFV after the initial shot the gun is often taken out by the first return of fire shell from the AFV.
This happens regardless of the distance of the gun from the AFV.

In my opinion I feel that the AT guns should be first of all harder to see (as in real life they would have been heavily dug in and camo'd up esp. in open countryside) and definitely harder to hit than they currently are.

Also the effectiveness of mortars against guns is a little worrying. Mortars should def. suppress the guns more easily allowing flanking manoeuvres to occur but not destroy them so consistently within a few shots. esp. when the mortar doesn't have direct line of fire.

This is just my "two cents" and not a complaint.

I'm interested to get other peoples thoughts on this.

And apologies if this has been discussed before.

The new release has breathed a breath of fresh air in to the CC community, thank you all who have participated in bringing the CC series to us.

Take it easy
Rift

PS I know recon units have been discussed before but, God I miss them, please can we have a couple for each BG (esp paras), some of the best skrimishes I've had are with the early contacts between recon units.

[Droop21]

I don't have the same experience as you do in regards to sighting. I find the AI AT guns (I'm playing allies) have quite a capacity (especially on a new map) to fire some shots and remain invisible (especially to tanks). I now tend to get paranoid and send infantry as bait unless I'm terribly short or the infantry is getting chewed up by mg.
I tend to agree with your second point, most of my kills on AT guns are done by mortars (especially if the range is short), but I'm no military expert

[Anthropoid]

Have not played Longest Day, but I and others had similar feelings about the AT guns vulnerability and "laser-guided" mortars in Wacht Am Rhein. Honestly it is part of why I have not yet bought Longest Day. Well that and the AI seems to be able to start off battles (in WaR) with his AT guns hidden incredibly deep inside woods far beyond how far it would be able to be manuevered in.
 
If you look over in the Wacht Am Rhein forums, you'll see a number of threads dealing with these topics.

[Rift]

The AT gun survivability is particularly noticeable when playing as Axis on CC LD. Yep the concerns are mainly for my own weaponary, and how quickly the AI spot them and respond. Your right Droop when the AI guns are concerned it can be very hard to spot and neutralise them. Everytime I want to destroy an AT gun I use Mortars, It does however feel like i'm cheating though [:)]

I have had some success with the 6pdr AT guns when playin Allies (the gun can be very effective against MarkIV at mid to long range), but only when firing from a position within a building. However the enemy still spots them after the first shot (which i'm sure in real life would be unlikely) and reacts in my opinion rather too rapidly.

I will def. check the WAR forums, thanks Anthropoid.

[advo]

In original CC5 after patch to kill a mortar a gun it was very complex (protection against hits from above at a gun it has been lifted up to 20) and it was realistic.
How much I remember in ÑÑ3 original (CC4 and CC5) to define position of the disguised gun right after first shot was impossible. Before to attack tanks it was necessary to lead investigation of territory and to reveal position of German guns. In new CC4 and CC5 LTD (Matrix game) efficiency AT of guns has strongly decreased.
P.S.
To me like new CC4 and CC5, but it would be desirable that they were even better.

[TheReal_Pak40]

AT gun survivability has been discussed in the WaR forum. This is what I posted on there several months ago and describes the crux of the problem with Close Combat series with regards to the Mortars vs AT Gun:

I have to agree, the AT guns seem extremely brittle. But I think the real problem is that it takes so little time for a mortar to take out an AT gun in WaR than compared to reality.

For example, immediately after your AT gun opens fire the enemy mortar team will have already zoomed in on the gun and started to fire at it as long as ANY enemy unit can draw a LOS to your gun. The round will drop within 2-3 seconds. If it takes an average of 3 rounds to knock out an AT gun then your gun life will be 9 seconds after firing.

Reality is a bit slower: Your AT gun opens fire. An enemy unit may take a few seconds to spot the gun; then depending on the unit and location, they will have to relay the information to the mortar team. I suppose this could be as little as 15 seconds if the spotting unit has radio to the mortar team or is real close to it. It will then take the mortar team several seconds to align the mortar in the right direction and put the right ascension on the tube. I'm not sure how quickly this is done, maybe someone with some mortar experience can chime in. I assume it will take at least 15 seconds. Then the team will fire the first round which takes about 8-10 seconds to fall. Using the same average of 3 rounds to kill an AT gun, that would be at least 24 seconds. So, maybe reality is around 1 minute of time that your AT gun survives. BIG difference.

However, another problem I have with AT guns is that if they miss a tank on the 1st shot, the tank will, it seems about 90% of the time, hit the AT gun on the first shot. This seems odd to me because my tanks have a harder time hitting other tanks and AT guns are a smaller target than tanks.

So, to sum it up:

Close Combat Series: 1st mortar round lands within 2-3 seconds of AT gun opening up.

Reality: 1st mortar round lands about 30 seconds after AT gun opens up.

HUGE difference. In reality this means the AT gun could get off several more rounds before being knocked out.

[GS_Schimpf]

Fact is, that at guns were far more succesful in the real battles back in ww2. But as we do not have the chance to build cover, we have to use the cover that the maps provide us with. To make it more real, at gun survivability needs to be increased. Sure, crew can get killed if a shell lands close AND behind the shield. But the gun itself would need a direct hit to be destroyed. It should be possible to damage it, if a shell lands close AND behind the shield.

As it is now the guns seem to be out of paper as they get just blown away if a shell hits just in the not so close vicinity. No army would have employed at guns if they would be just cannon fodder that can make boom instead of killing tanks.

Also at guns get spotted to easily after the first shot. I remember CoI were you could carry your guns with you several battles if not operations if you just hid them well and could score a lot of kills nevertheless. Everything else would make at guns totally useless as they just fill up slots you could use better.

So please take a look at what you did in CoI and try to consider changing the settings for WaR AND TLD accordingly. The community would thank you a lot. Me included

[panzerlehr62]

Whats so funny here is that as fragile as at-guns are in the open, they are almost unstoppable inside concrete bunkers. I guess there needs to be a happy medium.

Gz...

[Droop21]

Making them easier to suppress and harder to kill would probably help reaching that happy medium

[GS_Schimpf]

Good point Droop.

@pzlehr62: i read your aar. very good read. but here it is the bunkers that are tough. And I think they (the bunkers) are right the way they are now. Even if they make you worry a lot lately

[panzerlehr62]

I have one word for thous bunkers, "BRUTAL"! (actually I have a few more but I can't post them here!) [:D]

I can't afford to lose much more hair, heck my head is already starting to look like one of thous bunkers! [:@]

Gz...

[advo]

By the way I have very positively estimated, that some shots for murder of a gun are required to tanks

[thesock]

On operation Goodwood in Normandy the biggest problems was seeing the A/T guns. Many tank units that withdrew under fire due to high losses never even caught sight of the guns doing the damage.

[DasHoff]

yeah its a joke. my axis team mate rages hard, because unless his gun is in a building, as soon as it fires it's dead. even if its in a building, my tanks will easily take care of it. on the beaches, i didnt even really have trouble takin out the guns in the bunkers on the american maps. and the gun to gun battles always were in my favour. on one beach map, since i only had one sherman, i deployed the sherman and a couple of AT guns on the beach, and managed to take out all his guns in the bunkers with the loss of 1 gun (guns were completely in the open lol). and on gold beach, once id taken the hedgerows i  just lined up 4 6lbers in them the next round and blasted his guns outta their bunkers haha

in COI youd hide your gun in the high grass, and it wouldnt be spotted until an enemy tank or infantry literally rolled over it, which was awesome. now theres no point deploying anything bigger than a light gun which can fit in a house, because it will instantly get spotted, mortared and shot by tanks