45mm AT gun too good at anti infantry

[Bob123321]

I was testing out a soviet 45mm at gun platoon against  2* platoons of german infantry the other day and was a bit surprised by the results. I would have expected an unprotected AT gun unit to be fairly easily overrun by a solid force of infantry (considering their guns are pretty sub-optimal for the task at hand), but the 45mm guns absolutely destroyed them. As soon as the 45mm shell hit nearby a whole squad would go to ground and just lie there and another 1 or two hits and and they will be reduced to panic. The 45mm isn't a terribly effective anti infantry round as the explosive content is way too small, If I recall the british didn't even bother making a HE round for their 40mm in the Matilda tank because of this reason. But in game the gun is devastating, and far more effective than a maxim or mg42 would be in the same place. Considering the nature of the weapon It appears to me that the suppressive effect is much too large, and this leads to the opposing infantry being pinned down and destroyed when they otherwise would have been fine if they kept moving.

Is this working as intended?

[waypoint]

I've just played through a couple of quick battles where 2 platoons of german infantry assaulted a dug-in 45mm gun battery head on across an open field on a Shilovo map. Sure, infantry did suffer losses, but eventually they destroyed the whole dug-in battery. And yes, some were suppressed, some wounded, someone panicked and ran away, but most of the infantry always kept rushing forward and eventually overrun the position of the battery. I didn't notice what you've described as "As soon as the 45mm shell hit nearby a whole squad would go to ground and just lie there and another 1 or two hits and and they will be reduced to panic." In my opinion, the suppression caused by 45mm HE is quite OK.  Try setting a bigger interval in the attack order, and generally spread your infantry more.
And while Matilda may have lacked HE, Pzkpfw III with 37 mm gun definitely had it, and germans used quite a lot of HE rounds for their 37mm Pak 36 guns.

[Flashburn]

Another way to think about this is compare it to a hand grenade.  Any 37mm or 45mm is much more destructive than a hand grenade.  You throw a frag into a squad of close packed infantry and they are going to get messed up.  It lands far enough away it is only dangerous if your unlucky.  When you think about a gun its firing over long distance.  Much harder to get right in the middle of infantry.  So a larger shell has more explosive but more important, way more shrapnel.  As that  flying metal disperses there is simply more of it to hit infantry.  A 45mm shell hitting with in an infantry formation is going to wound and kill exposed infantry just fine.  Its just getting hits close enough where a larger shell will do a better job of it. 

As to the British and the 2 and 6 pounder guns.  I think was more a stupid inflexible choice higher up in command.  These guns where intended to kill tanks.  SO that is all they could do.  They most certainly could come up with some sort of shell for everything else.  I think a pencil pusher choice and not a practical one.   

[Fritz]

There are unconfirmed rumors that soviet industrial in WW2 did HE shells for 2 pounds guns (for tanks supplied under lend-lease), but how much, when and where it is unknown.

[hnbdgr]

Hi OP, +1, I noticed the same thing and posted a topic on steam discussions regarding that.

I think a lot of that has to do with the unwillingness of infantry to charge the position. They get the "heavy fire" (suppression) indicator quite soon and that will result in them not wanting to move. I reckon that's one of the problems. Even if a gun fires a shell every 10 seconds the infantry shouldn't feel as though they are under heavy fire.

A mg pinning the squad down with continuous fire? Yes
a squad or 2 pinning it down? Also quite plausible
continuous mortar attack? ditto

However if an isolated 45mm gun is in plain sight and less then 300m from them, they should start firing back to suppress the thing and move forward rapidly despite the HE shells attacking. AT guns have the slowest rate of fire from above mentioned threats and to hit the ground around infantry (especially if not on a slope) should be pretty darn difficult for them.

The problem with the heavy fire indicator is it seems to linger for too long even when the actual fire ceased. So it might be calm for 10 seconds and your squad is still covering their heads.

Another problem is that squads don't have a suppression fire mechanic. They sort of try and do it themselves...they are not so good at it. For instance infantry won't automatically find good firing positions. They are good at finding cover, but not a position that would enable them a firing solution in the direction of the threat. That part seems to be more or less random.   

What we don't have is a hard - suppress area order. I imagine a mechanic as follows. You order a squad to suppress an area(let's say we put a 200-300m limit on it), all bolt action and mg equipped infantry will maneuver into positions(edge of defilade, trench) and engage the target. If an individual sees an enemy soldier in the area they would switch from suppressive fire to accurate or semi-accurate fire automatically for the duration the target is visible.

I think AT guns are OP when used alone. They should certainly be very tough nut to crack from the front and coupled with Mg's + mortars ought to form the basis of any serious defence, but isolated guns shouldn't be as much of a threat as they are.

Just a note: I love this game/simulation, but I can see that there are aspects that could be improved I believe a clever suppression mechanic and revisiting the suppression indicator times are some of those things.

[andrey12345]

45 mm 53-K it is not a pure AT gun like Pak-38. It is a battalion gun, ie infantry support weapon (with some AT caps). HE shell for this gun is efficiently than same for German 5 cm guns.
It also has a canister ammunition shells, and has a very good fire rate (not much worse than that of the mortar). And one of its purposes - to suppress machine guns and infantry.

Why change something in the game, it is not clear.

[blazingPanzer]

Having done some testing of this scenario, I would have to agree with the sentiment of the OP regarding the 45 mm guns.  All AT guns (not just the 45 mm) seems to be very good at landing shells near the infantry, even when both they and the gun are on a relatively flat field. In reality such proficiency would be very difficult to achieve as AT guns are very low to the ground and fire high velocity shells along a relatively flat trajectory.  These attributes are great for hitting targets which possess a large profile which rises considerably above the terrain level (any vehicle, bunkers, buildings etc), but are a huge impediment when trying to engage infantry, except in very specific circumstances (targets on forward hill slope, for instance).  This is because targeting infantry with HE weapons essentially requires that the gunner lob his shells so they hit the ground near to the infantry, thus even the slightest error in range information will result in the shell overshooting or undershooting the target by a large distance.   I've noticed this effect myself while playing SABOW; even with a cannon that has a much larger blast radius and is mounted a lot higher above the ground it often takes a fair bit of trial and error to land a shell on a cluster of infantry.  I usually find it far easier to eliminate exposed inf with MG fire as you can just walk your tracers onto the target and chew them to pieces in a matter of seconds .

I also agree that the suppression produced by the 45 mm is too strong, with just a single shell needing to land within the general area of an inf squad to pin it down completely for a lengthy period of time after it hits; IMHO sporadic hits should not pin them down for this long, only fairly intense sustained fire.  This combined with the 45 mm's high ROF and the aforementioned AI uber gunnery allows an unsupported 45 mm gun to devastate an entire squad/s with HE in short order even if they're moving quickly and in a dispersed single line formation, as even infantry with high morale stop moving and returning fire after the first shell or 2 lands in their vicinity (even if they're not that close and produce no casualties), and simply lie there getting pounded until the squad morale breaks and they panic. 

From what I've read the 45 mm when used in an infantry support role was primarily used to destroy fixed fighting positions such as bunkers, although its main role was for destroying lightly armoured vehicles.  It certainly wasn't the weapon of choice for pinning down/destroying attacking infantry, machine guns and mortars were far more effective in this role.  Currently in GTOS it significantly outclasses either of these weapons in their intended role, and allows players to not bother protecting their guns with inf as is done in real life as they can pretty much fend for themselves.

[hnbdgr]

This man has put it in words so nicely! I agree on every point.

Having done some testing of this scenario, I would have to agree with the sentiment of the OP regarding the 45 mm guns.  All AT guns (not just the 45 mm) seems to be very good at landing shells near the infantry, even when both they and the gun are on a relatively flat field. In reality such proficiency would be very difficult to achieve as AT guns are very low to the ground and fire high velocity shells along a relatively flat trajectory.  These attributes are great for hitting targets which possess a large profile which rises considerably above the terrain level (any vehicle, bunkers, buildings etc), but are a huge impediment when trying to engage infantry, except in very specific circumstances (targets on forward hill slope, for instance).  This is because targeting infantry with HE weapons essentially requires that the gunner lob his shells so they hit the ground near to the infantry, thus even the slightest error in range information will result in the shell overshooting or undershooting the target by a large distance.   I've noticed this effect myself while playing SABOW; even with a cannon that has a much larger blast radius and is mounted a lot higher above the ground it often takes a fair bit of trial and error to land a shell on a cluster of infantry.  I usually find it far easier to eliminate exposed inf with MG fire as you can just walk your tracers onto the target and chew them to pieces in a matter of seconds .

I also agree that the suppression produced by the 45 mm is too strong, with just a single shell needing to land within the general area of an inf squad to pin it down completely for a lengthy period of time after it hits; IMHO sporadic hits should not pin them down for this long, only fairly intense sustained fire.  This combined with the 45 mm's high ROF and the aforementioned AI uber gunnery allows an unsupported 45 mm gun to devastate an entire squad/s with HE in short order even if they're moving quickly and in a dispersed single line formation, as even infantry with high morale stop moving and returning fire after the first shell or 2 lands in their vicinity (even if they're not that close and produce no casualties), and simply lie there getting pounded until the squad morale breaks and they panic. 

From what I've read the 45 mm when used in an infantry support role was primarily used to destroy fixed fighting positions such as bunkers, although its main role was for destroying lightly armoured vehicles.  It certainly wasn't the weapon of choice for pinning down/destroying attacking infantry, machine guns and mortars were far more effective in this role.  Currently in GTOS it significantly outclasses either of these weapons in their intended role, and allows players to not bother protecting their guns with inf as is done in real life as they can pretty much fend for themselves.