"Tanks vs AT" Topic

I'm asking this as a general question and I'm not sure it can be answered as such but--Can anyone tell me if the rate of fire of AT weapons was significantly faster than a similar weapon mounted in a tank. If so, what would you estimate the difference as a percentage?

Thanks for your help.

John S.

I would say yes, but I would be hard-pressed to come up with a good reference for this. It is impossible to give a general percentage that would cover all of the different types of AT weapons in comparison to all of the different types of tanks, but the impression I have from my readings is that AT-guns had a higher rate of fire under "typical battlefield conditions." As a general rule in the games that I run, tanks are given a single rate of fire while AT guns are given a double rate of fire. This gives a ratio of 2 to 1, which can't possibly be precisely accurate, but it translates to a game that I think feels right. I know that this is probably not the type of answer you're after, as you weren't asking about rules, but it's the best answer I've got :-)

DaS. It's tradition in miniatures gaming that AT guns always fire 2x faster than tank guns. The rule was probably written by a guy with a lot of AT guns and few tanks. Why we should have stopped tank production and built nothing but AT guns with that kind of efficiency. Tank crew loaders usually had rounds at their elbows. They wore helmets to stop knocking themselves out. The turrents could move. The gunsights were pretty good. The tank crews were trained; their lives depended upon good training. I don't understand the difference. 2X faster is a significant difference. My conclusion is that AT gun crews were pretty scared most of the time, with adrenelin being the real reason for the higher speed of firing.

Compared to AT crews, tank crews worked in relatively cramped conditions and with reduced vision. All other things being equal (e.g. crew training) they would be slower to pick up a target and slower to bring a round onto that target. But AT crews are very exposed. In the desert 25 pdr crews (used in an AT role) didn't even have gun shields. This must have made them nervous and that has to have a bearing on their rate of fire and willingness to stay with the gun.

BTW, I met an 37mm AA gunner from Totenkoff who "knocked out" a T34. He told me that the tank managed to land a shell near his gun which stunned the crew. Everyone else ran away (sensible people!) but he carried on laying rounds onto the T34 whos crew eventually bailed out. I suppose that being hit by shell fire, even if it is only 37mm, must make tank crews nervous.

If its just a matter of firing a gun, the AT gunners work in better conditions than the cramped tanker so there is probably some advantage to the AT gunner.

However, there's more to shooting than rate of fire. When one considers the ability of the AT gunner to acquire a target and lay his gun, v. the ability of the taker to acquire a target and traverse his turret, I think you still have to give the nodd to the AT gunner most of the time.

I can think of many exceptional circumstances which might nullify the above advantages but . . .

In the end, the AT gunner has a better chance of getting the first shot and can probably fire more rapidly. How much faster depends on many many things.

I read somewhere that it took a SU-152 almost a minute to reload. How many times could you pop the SU-152 with a 50mm PaK 38 in a minute? Probably several. This may be an extreme example but it does make the point that larger caliber weapons generally took longer to load and loading a larger caliber weapon in a cramped space probabl took longer still.

mjc

A 2 to 1 ratio does sound pretty ludicrous, I'm sure ATG's would have a slight advantage but not 100% -assuming the same weapon both tank and ground mounted. Given that gun crews were larger, better freedom of movement, usually better concealed, crews dedicated to the gun and not potentially having to multi-task as commander/ radio op/etc.
Some rule sets get round the problem in other ways- e.g.Spearhead has stationary atgs firing before stationary tanks in the turn sequence.
CD with its multiple rate of fire also can handle this easier -in the older editions a ground mounted atg might have a rof of 4 while its mounted equivalent only 3 (though they seem to have abandoned this in the current edition) also in CD the ammo rules can allow atgs a greater supply in order to maximise its rof while a tank may have to conserve supplies.
Another minor problem for tank weapons is clearing duds, misfires etc- much easier for an atg than a tank- PZr III crews for example rarely carried HVAP ammo because of its potential to jam in the barrel of the 50mmL60, which could only be cleared by ramming the barrel from outside the tank- a task much easier done from an atg.
The atg's major advantage really is concealment- much more relevant than rof.

All,

It's a combination of factors, larger crews (generally) to man the gun, far better working conditions and far, far better visibility.

E.G. The many tanks, like the T/34, had just one bloke loading the gun and after a few shots he's going to be pretty knackered, esp. if the vehicle has moved while he trying to do it and been given the gift of a few bumps and bruises for his trouble.

A 2:1 ratio is not improbable but as far as recreating this in wargames rules is concerned I would not disagree with that ratio, but I would make a distinction in that if the AT gun is firing at this speed then it should suffer a fire modifier to reflect this or its drops to the same rate of fire as a tank and suffers no modifier.

DB

It would be interesting to see what the taining manuals have to say about this. Usually to achieve competency in qualifications you need to be able to meet certain standards. compare the ratings for a trained gun crew and at gun crew and you'd have your answer on ROF.

In the rules I play, stationary weapons platforms fire at twice the rate of moderately moving weapons platforms, and win initiative. AT guns generally smaller (affects hitting chance against and "detectability")and are better able to detect targets. Most of this originated in what Donald Featherstone wrote in his rules way back when, and I'm fairly sure he wrote this on first hand experience (IIRC Churchill tankie in North africa and Italy), which lends it a little weight.

I'd tend to weigh in on giving the AT gun advantages over tank crews.

1) AT guns could be made almost invisible.
2) AT guns have a wider field of vision.
3) AT gun crews could swap positions easier if need be.
4) AT gun crews had more room to work.
5) Smaller target (ignoring 88s here).

The downside, of course, is their inability to displace as fast as an armored crew. Once acquired I'm pretty sure they were dead assuming the tankers were in range or simply bypassed.

Itīs really so easy with a AT gun to adquire another target? I always though that a tank, with itīs electric turret, should be faster moving its gun in the x axis, than a at gun

Is it realy so easy to adquire another target with an AT GUN? I always though that a tank should move itīs gun faster in the x axis than a AT GUN

Compared to AT crews, tank crews worked in relatively cramped conditions and with reduced vision. All other things being equal (e.g. crew training) they would be slower to pick up a target and slower to bring a round onto that target.

All of which has little or nothing to do with rate of fire. Target acquisition is a different animal altogether.

The rate of fire for an anti-tank gun and a tank gun of the same model is . . . you guessed it, the same! It takes the same amount of time to recoil, load the round, close the breech, and fire. Any difference would be due to the fact that an AT gun will fire almost continuously while a tank will generally choose to fire, then move to a different position, and then fire again.

And as far as target acquisition goes, the tank probably has the advantage. The tank commander's primary job is to find targets and lay the gun in the vicinity of the target. The gunner scans for targets through high-powered optics, the loader is looking from an elevated position, and the tank commander has both. Gun crews have a wider field of vision and that's all. But the thing is that gun crews, and tank crews for that matter, don't operate in a vacuum. They work in an integrated framework of other elements all of whom have specific sectors of watch and lanes of fire. That's what makes them effective, not the +1 for better field of vision, -1 for ground-level obstacles to LOS, etc.

AT gun crews Advantages:
Stable environment; more people working the gun than a tank crew has (usually); more room to do their work; and usually dedicated to the AT mission.

AT gun crew Disadvantages:
Exposed to infantry fire and tank fire; lack of mobility (especially when you get bigger than the 57mm); limited number of rounds readily available; and the need for support.

If you're looking at what the real world would say, my readings indicate that AT guns had faster rates of fire as long as the gun didn't have to move; by the way, moving includes pivoting the gun (IMHO most games are to generous with the AT gun's engagement volume). As soon as you have to pivot the gun, an AT guns ROF is gone. Suggest looking at the book the Tank Killers. There's some interesting discussion on AT Guns vs. Tank Destroyers. He doesn't talk ROF but you do get to see the number of kills (TD's had many more than AT Guns) which translates into opportunity to shot.

"The rate of fire for an anti-tank gun and a tank gun of the same model is . . . you guessed it, the same! It takes the same amount of time to recoil, load the round, close the breech, and fire. Any difference would be due to the fact that an AT gun will fire almost continuously while a tank will generally choose to fire, then move to a different position, and then fire again."

Except that a gun crew has probably 4 or 5 crew to serve the gun while a tank is lucky if it has 2- so ammo can be readied much easier for an atg i.e. you have a second loader standing with another round ready to put in the breech immediately- the increase in rof would be small, but for concentrated periods an atg will get off more rounds than an equivalent afv

"And as far as target acquisition goes, the tank probably has the advantage. The tank commander's primary job is to find targets and lay the gun in the vicinity of the target. The gunner scans for targets through high-powered optics, the loader is looking from an elevated position, and the tank commander has both. Gun crews have a wider field of vision and that's all."

Except that atg commanders have range finders just as good as an afv's and have usually more time (due to being able to maintain concealment) to aquire their targets- Once under fire an afv is going to find it far more difficult to aqquire anything shooting at him-plus by their nature atgs are stationary, and generally atgs decide when to shoot- Afvs are less likely to have that luxury
AfV co's once buttoned up are relying totally on narrow fields of vision- the optics can be first rate but if they are pointing the wrong way it doesn't do you a lot of good-

Like all things, gaming cannot take in all the minutia of the real world. While tank gunners and AT gunners could fire at or near the same rate – on a range – , real life conditions would certainly alter that, and I would submit it could go either way (see all the reasons for/against above) at any given time given local conditions.

What you need to have is some kind of balance, otherwise we'd all end up field tanks OR AT guns. I can't figure out for the life of me why, in some games, you'd even want an AT gun: no armour, no mobility, no aux. machine guns. The turret heads rule on those games if there aren't other factors in favour of the AT gun (harder to hit, remains hidden even after firing, etc)

Obviously, there were advantages to having both. The 6 pdr was an integral AT defense for Commonwealth Inf Battalion. Why bother if they were of little or no use?

If doubling the rate of fire for an AT gun "black box's" the advantages of the weapon for gaming purposes, go for it.

The AT gun will almost always have the first shot, and depending on the range and the tank's ability to "see" the AT gun's muzzle blast, may get in several shots prior to the tank responding with it's weapon. All things being equal (i.e., a AT gun that can damage, or destroy the target tank), the AT gun wins every time. Read "A Distant Trumpet" for some general history coverage of such actions.

Keep in mind that tanks were not supposed to fight AT guns for a reason. Infantry and artillery were supposed to surpress, or destroy the AT gun so the tank could break through. Fighting AT guns was a losing game for tanks. As Willie and Joe said, "A moving target attracts the eye."

Dan

I suppose the problem with most games is that AT guns tend to fire once and then they are dead. Most accounts show them giving at least as good as they got and many times better. I prefer to keep rates of fire constant but to give an advantage to concealment and size to the AT gun as far as spotting one and hitting it when you do.

I spent 6 years as a tanker in M60A3s. Generally, we had one round in the breech, one in your hands, and one loose in the ready rack, so your first three down range are very fast (15 seconds or faster). After that you have to fool with the bins, which takes more time. I suppose if you have a PAK-40 gun with several loaders in the crew, your sustained rate of fire might be more, but not during the short period of an individual engagement. As far as acquisition, it depends on what you doing. A tank on the move, even with stabilized sights, is pretty blind (exceptions are the later generation of vehicles with ultra smooth suspension systems). The sight picture vibrates too much to pick out details at long ranges. If your sitting in a camouflaged ambush position, ala Panther in Normandy, no way a manual limited traverse non stabilized site exposed crew anti tank gun is better than a tank. There's a reason that the the best anti tank weapon is another tank.

Rather than estimating rate of fire differential as a percentage, my theory would be to use LOS as a wargaming factor. AT guns were mostly set up for ambush, doing exactly what they were intended to do, destroy tanks.
Once discovered the AT gun and crew are vulnerable to all sorts of return fire. Including return fire from the very tanks they were designed to destroy.

The first shot, from either side may or may not hit, or be effective. The second and third usually decided the action.
He who sees first and shoots first, second and third, usually wins.

If an AT gun can push out 3 rounds in quick succession, while the tank is still aquiring the target, the tank looses.
This of course is why combined arms are necessary for an effective assult. As stated earlier Infantry/artillery are the real enemy of AT guns.

As a former AFV commander (105mm and 76mm) I say balogna to the faster rate of fire. I just don't believe it.

If your sitting in a camouflaged ambush position, ala Panther in Normandy, no way a manual limited traverse non stabilized site exposed crew anti tank gun is better than a tank.

Couldn't agree more.

Ready racks, cleaner environment, constant proximity to the breech, not worrying about making sure you're behind a shield or in a trench, etc. etc.

I'll bet dollars to doughnuts anyone here who has slung rounds around in a turret will say exactly the same thing. Granted, it depends on having a full ready rack. but a properly fought AFV will slip into dead ground and replenish any time its ready rack gets low.
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Tim

Read "A Distant Trumpet" for some general history coverage of such actions.

Do you mean "A Time For Trumpets"?
Which, by the way, is the best thing I've read on the Bulge:

link

I read somewhere that it took a SU-152 almost a minute to reload. How many times could you pop the SU-152 with a 50mm PaK 38 in a minute?

I doubt the minute to reload figure very, very much.

However, my first post is assuming an equal rate of fire between tank and trail mounted guns of the same make. A 50mm with small single piece ammo is going to beat the snot out of a 122mm gun with two piece ammo.

In my opinion, the whole "AT Gun faster than a tank" nonsense is simply the wargamer's view of min maxing and the mistaken, in my opinion, belief that every type of weapon balances out when you consider all aspects of operation.

Now, some WWII tanks, notably Soviet tanks, had extremely poor layouts and division of labour that would certainly lower effective rate of fire. But by late war, the 3 man turret layout of gunner, loader, commander was common for all combatants and, assuming late war Soviet tanks had a better arrangement than removeable floor pieces to cover ammo boxes (ala the KV-1), I'd put my money on a dead even split in rates of fire.
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Tim

Coupla things to add.

During ww2 the way a tank vented fumes was using fans.
After ww2 there's a gizmo on the barrel of the gun which draws the fumes out. IIRC it;s basiclaly a hole in the barrel and a sleeve round it – you can often see this extra bump mid barrel.
So as well as being cramped a ww2 tank crew was choking with fumes – the bigger the gun the quicker they got to have a turret full of smoke.

Once you fire from a static position there was a surprising amount of gunsmoke came out any fair sized tank gun anyhow.
It is my understanding that post war there have been significant improvements in this area. Militaries fire less of the things now so they're prepared to spend more.
This varied from nation to nation as well as depending on gun size.
So an ATG acquiring a new target or keeping tabs on a moving one had another advantage I didn't notice mentioned.
The spotter/CO would be offset to one side of the smoke and could observe shot in flight far easier.
Spot new targets far easier for that matter.

As to actual RoF.
I doubt there's a difference for the first coupla rounds between a 75mil gun in a turret or out in the open.

WHat all studies say is that first shot is what counts in ww2 tank anti tank. The ATG usually has the advantage of being the one who initiates the action and hence first shot.
Usually the second shot unless sited badly.
So I woud think difference in RoF ought to be of relatively low importance.

It is noticeable that spotting things is often far easier in rules than it probably ought to be. The theory on ATG is you site them so they will be firing at the flank of approaching tanks. This ought to mean the target tank was vanishingly unlikely to see what fired at it immediately.

AT gun gets a shot off gives up its placement in doing so with the blast and cloud of smoke, then comes under small arms fire from the inf. that should be with the tanks and of couse other tanks, then has lots of problems getting another shot off or moving to an other place to keep fighting.

AT guns were good at the first shot ambush but without much luck in a long fight, its part of the reason no one makes them any more. Even the big Inf. AT missiles are dieing out of use. You need to be able to fire an AT weapon and run or you die.

There is a very strong reason why it has always been said that the best anti-tank weapon is another tank and now a days its an aircraft of some kind.

From my limited perspective here – I would say that the ROF of the AT gun is higher than a comparable tank gun of any caliber. Especially when you consider the time it takes to get your gun on target. It does depend on a few things though, again from my limited perspective. First, tanks do have a much better time of moving to acquire a new target because of the turrets, most AT guns were not so mobile in terms of traverse (However many AT guns were AA guns pressed into service as an AT weapon – the 88mm being the most famous and it has a 360 traverse which is VERY FAST and has an incredible ROF by comparison to most guns of any caliber close to it). The problem is like Jeffrey said – the first couple of rounds from a tank will be VERY FAST as the loader is ready for action and doesn't have to mess with the bins as he has at least 2 and probably 3 maybe more in the ready racks depending on turret configuration and size of the gun mount.

Tanks have a difficult time spotting AT guns – and AT guns were reknown for lying in wait until the tanks were almost upon them before firing because they knew that they had to get a "first shot – first kill" off because any return fire from a tank is likely to kill many of the crew and tanks carry MG's too, which are really good at killing infantry – gun shield or not.

AT gunners also had the advantage of being stationary – so they are more likely to get off the first good shot – even against mobile targets. If you are talking WWII – no take was good at firing on the move – all of the tanks had a horrible time getting off any accurate shots while on the move and it was a great deal of luck and a good bit of skill when they did manage to hit something while on the move.

So, from my limited perspective on how to rate this – I would say it all depends on what scale you are trying to represent in your rules. In a 1 to 1 scale game with a relatively short time frame for a turn, you could vary the rate of fire fairly accurately dependant upon the amount of time you use for your turn scale.

Example:

Turn Time Scale: One Turn = 10 seconds. An AT gun could fire between 2 and 6 shots per minute depending upon crew training, caliber, and conditions with some probability of hitting a target at effective range – so depending on the type of gun you could fire 1 shot every third turn to a shot every turn. A Tank could fire a shot every turn for the first three turns (one shot every 10 seconds) but after that it would slow to one shot every other turn or every third through 6th turn depending on the size and type. Two part ammunition with a single loader took lots of time and most guns over 90mm were two part ammo (think SU152's, 155mm guns and the like).

So it all depends on the scale of abstraction you want to get to in your rules. Longer time scales, the less variation you should have. For example, in the above time scale situation, the tank could fire every turn for three turns and then he would slow down to a more reasoned ROF, however, if the tank took a few turns to sit and do nothing, the gunner would be back in a position of having a round in the barrel, as many ready rounds as he could for the next spotted target. Remember the old adage that war is an eternity of drudgery punctuated by moments of sheer terror. So, most actions involved relatively few "Gunfight at the O-K corral" type tank engagements – the tank engagements usually did not last very long at most an hour or so before one side either ran out of tanks, or decided it was too hot to keep going forward. People don't like to see other people killed – especially their comrades – and they would rather fall back and call in assistance than fight to the bitter end. Unfortunately, at some points the Germans and Russian armies reached the point of no return and no where to run – which is where the stalemates occurred – Gates of Moscow, Stalingrad, etc. same for the Germans – Berlin, Siegfried line, etc.

So, if you are looking at the ROF of weapons for AT versus tanks and they seem to be very close to the same ROF – in reality it breaks down to the time scale and the abstraction of a rule set if you are looking at a game.

Also, you have to consider the expenditure of ammunition – both the AT and Tank have finite amounts of ammunition and both the tank and the AT gun are cognizant of the number of rounds they have available. Just because an AT gun COULD fire faster doesn't mean that they did fire faster in every circumstance – because oft times the AT gun wanted to make sure that every round counted – because every knocked out tank meant less likelihood of return fire. So accuracy and keeping your gun on target was as important if not more important that the ROF of the weapon.

Unlike WWI where the ROF was vastly important because you could lay down fire like a hose and then boogie your battery of fast 75's out of range for return fire or move to a new location quickly to avoid countery battery fire – the ROF of a weapon on WWII versus armored vehicles was used differently – because you had to be on target with each shot or it was wasted. HE rounds at infantry just had to be close. AP rounds have to be on target or you just plain wasted the time and ammo to throw projectiles down range and potentially give your position away.

Alright – enough of my babbling on this topic.

Micheal Wittman always regarded AT guns as priority targets, even more important than enemy tanks. They were vastly more dangerous as they were hard to spot, and more importantly as mentioned above, were (usually) sited to kill armour – sited in defilade firing from a flank or whatever. Nothing to do with ROF, but with doctrine and usage.

British and Russian tankers trying to penetrate pakfronts in 1941 and 1942 might agree.

AT guns lost many of their advantages later in the war as they both got a lot bigger to defeat the heavier armour and tanks were more generally equipped with effective dual purpose guns.

From 1917 until 1942 (ish) AT guns were king of the battlefield when it came to fighting tanks.

it should be fairly simple to stablish – just look up teh data for some guns that had both ground and turrent mounts –
RoF of an 88mm L56 AA/AT gun: 15-20 rpm
RoF of (more or less) the same gun in a Tiger 1 ??

RoF of a 75mm PAK 40 – 14 rpm
RoF of Pz IV F2 onwards?

RoF of 17 pdr AT – 10 rpm
RoF of Firefly? (Wiki says "half that of a 7mm sherman")

there's got to be some tank grogs out there with the info??

I am curious. Did the lighter AT guns move after having fired some rounds to another hidden position, like MGs were instructed to do when under fire?

Maybe we the wargames are to used to "burn" our AT guns, firing them until they are destroyed.

By the way, I think that under IABSM rules, the AT gun use is very well done

Seems to me that target acquisition, not ROF, is the key advantage for an ATG – as noted, the first few (or first) shots are the most important

Yes, ideally they should be sited like machineguns – under full cover from the front and covering each other with flanking cross fires preferably over obstacles to impede/channel movement. Tanks entering such a set up don't get a chance to identify where the fire is coming from before they are destroyed.

Badly sited AT guns are spotted by supporting forces when they open up, well sited ones aren't.

AT Guns, especially the smaller ones, were much easier to conceal than a tank and were often used in defensive positions (whether that was flank coverage on an advance or an overall defence or whatever). It's that reason a properly sited AT gun is so deadly.

But I'd still challenge anyone to a competition in a Leopard or Scorpion (the latter does not have a fume extractor BTW) versus a ground mount of the main armament. I've flung rounds of both calibres a lot and I just don't see how rate of fire for a tank could possibly be any less.

The other thing to realize is that firing a gun, whether in a tank or a towed gun, is not just load and fire, load and fire. The gunner has to aim the gun and when it fires, the recoil causes the traverse mechanism to slew and the gun tends to jar in place. Once he's fired, he has to realign the gun (many former tank gunners know the old saying: "last lay in elevation" or depression, depending on the gun used) to recreate the picture in the sight, ie, make sure the hash mark in the gun sight graticule is where it should be.

That takes a few seconds and you just simply can't jam a round into the breach, scream loaded! and expect the gunner to fire immediately.

Andy mentioned an observer – if in a direct fire engagement the gunner loses the sight picture (and it certainly happens, especially at short ranges because of the smoke) and needs the commander (whether it's the commander in the tank hatch or the gun commander off to one side) to give corrections, then boys, it's game over in a slogging match. Game over. Commander corrected engagements are s-l-o-w. Being a gunner trying to strain and keep the sight picture is very tough and very stressful.
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Tim

Shouldn't we consider a serious decision to be made by tankers – which type of ammunition to prepare for the initial engagement?
If they pick anti-personnel to fight gunners they are impotent against possible encounters of tanks.

That's a major consideration in issuing orders for an operation and/or replenishment. Even with the generally fairly well stocked WWII vehicles of the time, there's still the decision as to what mix to put in the ready rack and what type of round to have up the spout. Nowadays, there's usually a company level order on the ammo mix and from what Canadian armour veterans of Italy and NW Europe have indicated in conversations in the mess, the same sort of thing was included in orders back then, at least sometimes.
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Tim

There are many factors – an AT gun can have multiple ammunition handlers so ammo is much quicker to the gun from storage, the commander spotting fall of shot can be a bit further away so less affected by blast and smoke, the gunner is not affected by fumes, etc.

The Hetzer is said to have had a low rate of fire because the gun was loaded from the right but also mounted far to the right of the centreline, despite having 2 loaders.

However it made up for it with a low shilouette allowing easy concealment.

Heavy tanks such as the King Tiger & IS series are said to have had "low" rates of fire – the IS managed 1.5-2 rounds per minute or so AFAIK – the 122mm gun was 3 round per minute.