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#87075
Avatar photoNorm S
Participant

I flirted with this subject earlier in the week. I had started reading the Bazooka v Panzer Osprey book from their Duel series. From the outset, the book said that it was a widespread misconception that plates were originally installed to deal with HEAT rounds and rather it was specifically to deal with the ATR threat.

Apparently the German had two choices, mesh wire or plate. Bothe were effective, the mesh would absorb energy and distort the trajectory of the bullet. Plate was readily available and easier to install, so that’s what they went for.

The book says that France, Poland and Russia deployed their anti-tank guns along a front in a density that was frequently over-whelmed by the German tactic of concentrating panzer numbers. In an initial response, the Soviets ramped up their production and wide-spread allocation of effective ATR and in response to that, the Germans added skirts.

Having regard for that, it would seem that skirt should be a pretty effective counter-measure to ATR in a game.

Somewhere else (I think it was Thomas Anderson’s Tiger), I read that the ATR could be used in a sort of sniper style to annoy even heavy vehicles, specifically targeting things like hinges and visor slots. He gives an example of a glass visor being struck and knocked back in, falling onto the floor of the tank, glowing red hot.  I suppose track links might have been equally vulnerable.