Never trained with the Brits in that manner. But US doctrine was, each battery had a tack killer team(which I was in charge of several different times), that was to engage and delay the armor so the guns could get away.
While we would train on direct fire occasionally, we did not see it as a really effective means of defense. If we could get a surprise shot from a flank might do the trick. Most gun chiefs told me they would get most of their crew away from the gun so at least a few of them would survive.
The best round we had for AT direct fire was standard HE. We used quick fuze, and hoped to stop the tank with a hit. OIf that happened, we where to switch to delay fuze. As most tanks can get 3-4 round out for every one we shoot, if we missed the 1st round there likely would not be a second. And anything over 1000 yards is very unlikely to get a first round hit. Remember, no rangefinders and a very arced trajectory meant range was very important.
A few times a gun chief would come to me to get a map estimation of range, which was always better than they could do with the old Mk 1 eyeball. That usually seemed to help, but still very few 1st round hits.
When I first started leaning all of this, my platoon Sgt, a Vietnam vet told use if we got in that situation, we where already dead, we would just be trying to take a few SOBs with us. And trying to run from tanks just means you die tired, so you might as well shoot.
Owen
looks at another boxed set of cyborgs.
