Want advice about AT Guns and King Tigers

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Mousehold
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Want advice about AT Guns and King Tigers

Post by Mousehold »

I just finished the Battle of the Bulge scenario as the Allies and even though I won it handily, it left me with quite a few questions about unit tactics.

1. How do you defeat a pack of 5 units of King Tigers? :shock: Aside from the AI making miserable mistakes, these units seemed invincible to me. I don't think I ever destroyed a KT unit in the entire match, though I miraculously caught one in a city with AT-equipped infantry and, since I had pretty much won by then, I attacked just to see what would happen. I scored 5 damage but took 8, then died pretty much immediately the next turn. The AI even brought two more KTs, because a 5 strength KT is apparently not enough to defeat a 2 strength infantry on open terrain. :roll:

Anyway, I tried tactical bombers, the biggest AT guns I could get, heavy infantry ambushes, tank destroyers and tanks. All my artillery was just a joke. The AI kept the KTs together with lots of support and while I eventually picked off all of the supporting units, the KTs were still pretty much invincible. If there are two (or three or more!) together it seems like attacking with anything at all is just a suicide charge. Since I won the scenario I'm not complaining that the KT is overpowered, but I'm wondering what the "correct" method to handling these scary beasts is. The only thing that "worked" was delaying them with infantry in heavy forests and cities.

2. AT guns. What good are these? I bought the best I could and put them in all sorts of places. Forests. Hills. Plains. Cities. I understand how initiative works and how terrain caps initiative, but on offense or defense I struggled to get my money's worth on AT guns. Is the German armor on this scenario nightmarish, or am I doing something wrong? I don't think I could have defeated a human player with AT gun ambushes. Most of my AT guns bounced shot after shot against German armor and died very quickly. Oddly enough they only had any mentionable successes against German tank destroyers and scouts, but infantry would have been better and cheaper in all of those situations.

Towards the end of the scenario I could have swore I noticed an AT gun or two fire in support of my adjacent infantry units, but I don't see anything in the manual about this and I don't remember anything in the tutorial either. Am I just imagining things or are AT guns really meant to support units on defense like artillery can? I'm struggling to come up with a reason to want AT guns when I could buy mechanized infantry or armor instead.
El_Condoro
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Post by El_Condoro »

The AI seems to spawn only the best tanks - KTs and IS-IIs etc. In my experience most of the German heavies and the Panthers are fairly hard to destroy. The only success I have had is if the KT is low on ammo - perhaps use weak infantry that will die, or recons to draw off the remaining ammo; then surround it as best you can, or so that if it retreats it will do so into a city or forest hex; then hit with artillery, then with TBs, then the heaviest attack tank, then infantry or whatever is available and then another tank. The order of attack may vary. If you can surround the KT and force it to retreat it will surrender - often the best to hope for. Otherwise, I like you, find them pretty tough nuts to crack.
Obsolete
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Post by Obsolete »

I attacked just to see what would happen.
You really should co-cordinate better to maximize all the bonuses of your units in attacks. And preferably simultaneously.

In any case, Kings were the top feared tank of the war, so they SHOULD cause some pain. You'd be a fool to pay that prestige for them were this not the case.
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MrsWargamer
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Post by MrsWargamer »

So much of WW2 was the result of lousy thinking and brain dead employment, not a weakness of equipment.

Well used and well employed, a KT SHOULD fold spindle and multilate the opposition. It's lucky for us in the real event, they were used wrong and ran out of fuel. It's also lucky for us they chose way too few uber tanks, instead of way too many perfectly good proven Pz IVs.
Rudankort
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Post by Rudankort »

King Tigers are very good units, but not invincible. Your best bet is to leave them out of ammo. In Ardennes you have a lot of tank and AT options in US and GB arsenal with good hard attack ratings (M36, M4A3(76)W, Comet, Challenger, Sherman Firefly etc.). Tiger is a formidable opponent for them, but if it is out of ammo, it cannot shoot, and they can finish it off pretty fast. To reduce Tigers ammo supplies, you can do multiple attacks, but also strategic bombers can be employed with good effect.

In close terrain like forest and city KT becomes vulnerable to infantry with good initiative and hart attack, like US rangers.
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Post by Iscaran »

Levelbomb them to dust (or till ammo is empty). Then just one or two AT attacks make the trick.

Until then keep your infantry in close terrain (as far as possible) and use defensive art fire.

Also infantry or AT gun attacks on Kings in close terrain can be quite devastating (like 50:50 losses) if you are just a little lucky.
savic13
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Post by savic13 »

Why AT guns not behave like AA guns ? AA guns attacks Airplane when Airplane attack unit next to AA gun and Airplane, why AT guns not attack tanks in defense when tanks attack unit close to AT gun and himself. To me better to rise price and make AT guns behave like AA guns and Artillery, because AT is defensive unit and you always left to attack with it. To me AT is mostly useless and much better to spend prestige on other units.
savic13
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Post by savic13 »

I think we may have poll for AT behavior.
TheGrayMouser
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Post by TheGrayMouser »

savic13 wrote:I think we may have poll for AT behavior.
If At guns did as you suggest think how the game would play (considering this is hexbased)

infantry unit one up, backed by AT And artillery behind

infantry unassailable by either tank OR infantry Only air.....

Youd be better off not having at guns at all, rather having them be "attachments "within" and infantry unit.. Of course then the game wouldnt resemble Panzser Korp anymore....

AT guns are cheap/not fantastically effective but do the job they were supposed to , slow the enemy before being overrun.(sometime literally)
savic13
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Post by savic13 »

I like to have better MP play for my custom map, my friend and I like to play from start with prestige and no unit on map just to have greater and wider strategy options. Wright now neither of us will buy AT guns and for us they not exist. From that start point we have little options, ending almost always to buy heavy tanks .... And what is strategy to have AT guns and wait to Tiger II lose ammo ???
Mousehold
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Post by Mousehold »

TheGrayMouser wrote:
savic13 wrote:I think we may have poll for AT behavior.
If At guns did as you suggest think how the game would play (considering this is hexbased)

infantry unit one up, backed by AT And artillery behind

infantry unassailable by either tank OR infantry Only air.....

Youd be better off not having at guns at all, rather having them be "attachments "within" and infantry unit.. Of course then the game wouldnt resemble Panzser Korp anymore....

AT guns are cheap/not fantastically effective but do the job they were supposed to , slow the enemy before being overrun.(sometime literally)
If AT guns supported actions at a range of 0 like fighters do, that might be a nice compromise. They wouldn't be able to hide behind infantry and escape direct attack, but they could be screened by infantry to prevent them from being attacked by more than 1 tank at a time. The infantry would still benefit from the AT gun's support if the attacking armor is funneled into a hex adjacent to both. This would be situational, but would give AT guns a lot more use for defending in certain terrain features. Right now I think they're just too expensive for what they do.

In open terrain, AT guns get murdered. In close terrain, any infantry with some hard attack is better and cheaper for defense. Consider I had infantry do 5 damage in a city to a KT while my AT guns would be extremely lucky to do just one damage in any kind of terrain, close or open, despite having at least 3 times the hard attack value as the infantry.
TheGrayMouser
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Post by TheGrayMouser »

Hmm, i think the problem with AT is their usage. (btw the assumption is you are refering to TOWED At)

I just loaded up Ardennes and didnt see a single US AT on the map. This means you are likly purchasing them as a stopgap measure to protect a city 1 turn before the panzers come in. They will have no time to entrench(although most units except infantry cant entrench much anyways) and also, most AI units will have several bars of experiance in such a late war scenario, any of your freshly purchased units will have 0 which will impact combat.

Also, are you attacking with them? If so, they suffer a minus -3 to initiative when attacking tanks/recon, they dont suffer this when defending.

You are right though they are expensive but likly so they arnt spammed by the AI.

(BTW I saw in your original post you thought you saw AT guns providing support fire. These arnt AT guns but Artillery, some quite fearsome looking that look like tank destroyers. Basically they are assault guns, and ealrier ones only have a range of 1 but they are wellprotected and quite useful units)

it is an intersting idea giving AT a support fire role but i think it would require a lot of code change and be hard to balance.
For example are they going to provide support fire only when an adjacent unit is attacked by Tanks or recon ? what about anti-tank units? Armoured organic xport? infantry etc?
It would be hard to achieve a good balance if AT gets such a multifunctional roll. Basically theyd be shorter ranged but better artillery.

The game is moddable so you could probably make some changes to test to see how it works. make some AT test units , class them as artillery with a range of one and then give them some stats simliar to the real ones and see how they fair. Problem is they will be able to shoot at adjacent units without them shooting back, but thats ok , the point of the test is to see how the gameplay is effected by them having give support fire, the other would have to come from code change

Cheers!
Razz1
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Post by Razz1 »

USe combined arms and Mass attack with them going low on Ammo
Mousehold
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Post by Mousehold »

TheGrayMouser wrote:Hmm, i think the problem with AT is their usage. (btw the assumption is you are refering to TOWED At)

I just loaded up Ardennes and didnt see a single US AT on the map. This means you are likly purchasing them as a stopgap measure to protect a city 1 turn before the panzers come in. They will have no time to entrench(although most units except infantry cant entrench much anyways) and also, most AI units will have several bars of experiance in such a late war scenario, any of your freshly purchased units will have 0 which will impact combat.

Also, are you attacking with them? If so, they suffer a minus -3 to initiative when attacking tanks/recon, they dont suffer this when defending.

You are right though they are expensive but likly so they arnt spammed by the AI.

(BTW I saw in your original post you thought you saw AT guns providing support fire. These arnt AT guns but Artillery, some quite fearsome looking that look like tank destroyers. Basically they are assault guns, and ealrier ones only have a range of 1 but they are wellprotected and quite useful units)

it is an intersting idea giving AT a support fire role but i think it would require a lot of code change and be hard to balance.
For example are they going to provide support fire only when an adjacent unit is attacked by Tanks or recon ? what about anti-tank units? Armoured organic xport? infantry etc?
It would be hard to achieve a good balance if AT gets such a multifunctional roll. Basically theyd be shorter ranged but better artillery.

The game is moddable so you could probably make some changes to test to see how it works. make some AT test units , class them as artillery with a range of one and then give them some stats simliar to the real ones and see how they fair. Problem is they will be able to shoot at adjacent units without them shooting back, but thats ok , the point of the test is to see how the gameplay is effected by them having give support fire, the other would have to come from code change

Cheers!
It was 3 AM at the time (darn game!) so I figured I was seeing things.

I purchased AT guns explicitly to try and figure them out in that scenario. I didn't know they got an initiative penalty but I was trying to get a feel for them in practice. I put them in forests, on hills, in the open, in cities. I let them attack and defend. Some had time to get entrenched. Some did not. All in all I was disappointed with the results. I noticed later in another scenario that a heavily entrenched AT gun unit in a fortified hex can really do a number on armor, but that's a pretty small niche.

I don't have a fetish for AT guns, mind. I can see how they could be useful if they are were given free as part of the scenario. I'm just trying to figure out why I would ever want to spend prestige for one.

I made a post related to this topic over here with other less dramatic ideas included: viewtopic.php?t=26125&start=20 (Quoted below.)
He means that AT guns should defend adjacent units that come under attack. Since they have a range of 0 that means they would have to be adjacent to both the unit they are defending and the unit they are firing on, but it would give them a bit of extra "oomph" that I think they are lacking. They would work more like fighters than AA guns or artillery in this way, again because they have a range of 0. If this is done you can put them in a defensive line with infantry units to help better resist tank attacks on your infantry. I don't think it would be overpowered because you could still ignore the infantry and attack the AT guns directly.

It seems to me that either AT guns suffer for their low initiative in open terrain or they suffer for their poor defense in close terrain. If you attack with them against tanks they take a further initiative penalty. My experience is still very limited but I struggled to make use of them as Germany in the Normandy scenario and as the Allies in the Battle of the Bulge scenario. When I see enemy AT guns I typically ignore them. They fair poorly against infantry and their initiative penalty hurts them if they actually move to attack my armor.

Aside from a generic price decrease, I thought giving AT guns a +1 entrenchment bonus in some types of terrain would be helpful. I would consider clear, countryside, hills and/or airfields; in places where the usual entrenchment would be 0 or 1, AT guns would respectively have 1 or 2. This might only take effect when they are engaged with ground vehicles.

Another simple idea would be to give AT guns a +1 initiative bonus when defending against ground vehicles in some types of terrain where initiative would normally be capped. In other words, the AT guns would be able to have an initiative value 1 point above the terrain's initiative cap. This could include bocage, forest, mountains, high mountains, city, port and/or fortification, all of which normally have a cap of 3 or less to initiative.
savic13
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Post by savic13 »

Mousehold your idea is what I think is best for AT guns, to behave like fighters or AA guns with range 0 wrigth now they are ultimatly useless because they suffer penalties in attacking role and if you have at guns ageinst human player you will always left to attack with it becose tank will pass you and attack other units and defendig is worthless.plz make at guns defending unit.
PinkPanzer
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Post by PinkPanzer »

Rudankort wrote:King Tigers are very good units, but not invincible. Your best bet is to leave them out of ammo. In Ardennes you have a lot of tank and AT options in US and GB arsenal with good hard attack ratings (M36, M4A3(76)W, Comet, Challenger, Sherman Firefly etc.). Tiger is a formidable opponent for them, but if it is out of ammo, it cannot shoot, and they can finish it off pretty fast. To reduce Tigers ammo supplies, you can do multiple attacks, but also strategic bombers can be employed with good effect.

In close terrain like forest and city KT becomes vulnerable to infantry with good initiative and hart attack, like US rangers.
In PG "Attack it with your best strat, Then attack with a tank from a direction which causes it to retreat into bad terrain. Then attack with infantry and more air units.
Is there a predictable retreat direction in PC?
Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are as inexhaustible as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of rivers and streams; like the sun and moon, they end but to begin anew; like the four seasons, they pass away but to return once more. Sun Tzu
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Post by Razz1 »

Is there a predictable retreat direction in PC?

Only away from you. If possible it will retreat from the direction it came.
PinkPanzer
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Post by PinkPanzer »

Razz1 wrote:Is there a predictable retreat direction in PC?

Only away from you. If possible it will retreat from the direction it came.
A la PG. In PC it probably takes strat to suppress it. tank to push it into bad terrain. Another strat to suppress it again, then infantry to kill it. Possibly a tac to finish it off.

I remember in PG, attack an AD with a strat. Left it with one ammo. Next turn attack it with the same strat, left it with zero ammo. Move the strat and skuka it plus any units close to it could kill it.
Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are as inexhaustible as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of rivers and streams; like the sun and moon, they end but to begin anew; like the four seasons, they pass away but to return once more. Sun Tzu
El_Condoro
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Post by El_Condoro »

It's been asked before but,
When the normal retreat hex (away from the attack) is occupied and the retreating unit can go clockwise or counter-clockwise is there a definite direction it will take or is it random (50/50)?
Obsolete
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Post by Obsolete »

Ahah, I've started to keep an eye on that myself. But I want to get a bit more data before I come to a full conclusion on that.
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