Tank gun vs Anti-tank gun. Effectiveness?

[Ivan Sorensen]

Another “I wonder how this really fits together” post.

I’ve seen books suggest that anti-tank guns are more effective in terms of the speed of acquiring targets and their rate of fire compared to tanks, and intuitively that seems to make sense (better visibility and more room to work) but does anyone have anything suggesting how big that difference really is, when evaluating the same gun?

[Tony S]

Some of the difference might be due to training.  I seem to recall the number of kills in WW2 was much higher among the tank destroyer crews than the panzer crews, which was attributable to the fact that the tank destroyer gunners were from and trained by the artillery arm, and more specifically the anti tank guns, whereas the tank gunners were trained by the panzer korps.

I remember reading about the tank destroyer gun sights were rather cleverly designed to be both fast in acquiring the target and range, while rather simple to use.  The autobiography “Panzer Gunner” describes it rather well, with illustrations.  Apparently the equivalent sights in a PzIV for example, were not as good.

Reports also stated that the regular tanks, like the Panzer IV, were not at ease in this kind of offensive due to their preference for mobility. With less refined optics, a high silhouette and poor cooperation with infantry, they were found less efficient in every way. So much so that it was reported from an anonymous tank commander “I would rather have one StuG Abteilung rather than an entire Panzerdivision”.

https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/nazi_germany/stugiiig/#index16

(As an aside, I was a little startled when I began reading his memories of his hometown – the author grew up about a block away from me and went to the school I see out my front window)!

[John D Salt]

As usual for anything requiring a vaguely numerical answer, it’s a good idea to consult David Rowland’s “The Stress of Battle”, formerly available at eye-watering prices and now available on much more moderate terms now that it has been re-published by John Curry’s History of Wargaming project.

In vague hand-wavy terms, it seems anti-tank guns are something like two or three times as effective in terms of casualty infliction as tanks in defence. Partly this seems attributable to the greater number of officers and NCOs per weapon, but Rowland suggests other factors as well, including the point that tanks have the choice of disengaging, whereas gun crews have little choice but to fight it out. This latter point is I think a large part of the reason the Russians have historically preferred towed anti-tank guns to give a stable anti-tank defence, and, unlike the Western powers, retain them to this day.

Rather differently, the following figures give a Russian figure, based on GPW experience, of the probability of a breakthrough by tanks against an anti-tank defence based on the correlation of forces. I have extracted these numbers from a table I originally encountered in a copy of “Strategy and Tactics” magazine in 1979, and have since seen reproduced in Isby’s”Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army”, 1981, and in a couple of Soviet sources, although I regret that I cannot recall the name of the original author. In the earliest Soviet source I have seen, it contains a mistake which becomes obvious when the curves are plotted on a graph; nobody seems to have done this, for the error is faithfully copied everywhere I have seen the table reproduced.

Anyway, here we are:

Tks/gun P(breakthrough)
1.25 1%
1.50 2%
1.67 5%
2.00 10%
2.50 30%
3.00 50%
4.00 75%
5.00 92%
6.00 98%
8.00 100%

This shows that you need three times the concentration of tanks as anti-tank guns in order to get an even chance of achieving a breakthrough, which seems quite consistent with Rowlands’ estimate of the superiority of anti-tank guns.

Hope that’s of some interest.

All the best,

John.

[Whirlwind]

That is of interest. What was the error in the original?

Also, wondering a little about why you would go for a 3-tank platoon if that was what your calculations were.

[John D Salt]

Whirlwind wrote:

That is of interest. What was the error in the original?

The original table has A/Tk weapons per km along the top and tanks per km down the side. The entry for 40 tanks against 15 guns shows a breakthrough probability of 65%. Plot the curves and it becomes very obvious that this does not belong with all the other points plotted, and it should be something more like 35%. It seems to me pretty easy to mistake a 3 for a 6 when transcribing numbers.

Whirlwind wrote:

Also, wondering a little about why you would go for a 3-tank platoon if that was what your calculations were.

I think the Russian idea was to make platoon commanding as simple a job as possible. Tank platoons more than three strong tend to arrange themselves into sections, or at least do fire and movement within the platoon, whereas if it’s only three they all do the same thing. An early T-34 commander was severely overloaded anyway, without trying to co-ordinate fire and movement within his platoon.

All the best,

John.

[MartinR]

As John has noted, various OR studies have shown AT guns are two to three times more effective than tanks at anti tank fire. That is identical weapons in tank vs AT mounts.

WHY that is, has been the subject of much ink spilled and military head scratching. Western tank manufacturers did a brilliant job of convincing NATO that tanks are the answer though, becauss everybody  likes a big, expensive, tank.

 

 

 

 

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Pieter Roos]

Thanks for the lead on “The Stress of Battle”, looks like a future purchase.

Without having that to read, I have to wonder how much of the higher rate of success for AT guns/TDs is because they are generally on defense while tanks are more commonly attacking. Plus the towed guns are usually smaller/harder to spot (obviously not an 88mm unless it has had time to dig in). The Germans are noted for using guns on the offense, but then we have to think the tanks are distracted by the enemy tanks – the British seem not to have noticed guns for a long time in the desert attacks, and claimed superiority of German tanks even while their own testing of captured examples disproved it!

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Late model 88s were pretty low slung affairs, easy to hide.  It really comes down to ROF and target acquisition to get in the first shot.  A tank on the roll hasn’t got the many observers with lots of eyeballs of a AT gun, and even sitting on the defense, is harder to hide from attackers, so it may not get in a second shot.

Mick Hayman
Margate and New Orleans

[MartinR]

Various armies came to various odd conclusions about WHY anti tank weapons were so much more effective, including crew size, visibility and even the mix of ranks in the crews. Bear in mind this is for identical weapons to those in tank mounts. But Noone actually knows. Dupuy just added in a 100% combat multiplier for AT weapons in his QJM model.

Tank manufacturers continue to sell the snake oil idea that “the best anti tank weapon is another tank”. Well they would say that, wouldn’t they, and certainly convinced NATO after 1945. The most effective AT weapon now is apparently a swarm of cheap drones.

 

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Pieter Roos]

Counterpoint: People claim the tank is obsolete. Then they find they need a gun to support infantry, but it has to be mobile – let’s put it on tracks for cross country. Then protect it and it’s crew from small arms and artillery – add armor…

I think there are plenty of anti-tank weapons being made apart from tanks; ATGM, some guns, drones being the latest. None totally negates the tank any more than automatic weapons totally negate infantry.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

I think the cheap drone and Man portable ATGM which cost so little compared to the expensive modern MBT such that thousands can be fielded for the price of one beast has rendered the tank as useful as a battleship in WW2.  A lot of them built and fought with, but after the war and even during the war it was realized that these weapons  no longer provided combat value worth their great price and new orders disappeared or started hulls converted to building carriers.  Modern armies are going to see a serious change in doctrine and procurement after watching the War in Ukraine, much like what happened as a result of the SCW. Tanks as known since the 1960s will disappear as they wear out, but they will remain a bit useful against less modern equipped forces until even the poorest of countries or revolutionary realizes that the deployment of a few thousand dollar ATGMs can destroy the 12 million dollar MBT.

Mick Hayman
Margate and New Orleans

[Whirlwind]

Pieter Roos wrote:

The Germans are noted for using guns on the offense, but then we have to think the tanks are distracted by the enemy tanks – the British seem not to have noticed guns for a long time in the desert attacks, and claimed superiority of German tanks even while their own testing of captured examples disproved it!

We have discussed this previously IIRC, but the conclusion in regards to armour seems only to apply to some of the early PzIIIs with homogenous armour plate, and not at all to armament. Here is a summary.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Pieter Roos wrote:

Counterpoint: People claim the tank is obsolete. Then they find they need a gun to support infantry, but it has to be mobile – let’s put it on tracks for cross country. Then protect it and it’s crew from small arms and artillery – add armor… I think there are plenty of anti-tank weapons being made apart from tanks; ATGM, some guns, drones being the latest. None totally negates the tank any more than automatic weapons totally negate infantry.

 

Fire support from a large, manned, armored  vehicle will disappear.  Infantry will be able to provide their own fire support via DP portable ATGM (or suicide drone).   if a vehicle is involved it will probably be in the form of a light semi-disposable tankette drone with remote guiding, mounting either an ATGM launcher or auto loading gun  for direct fire.  The interim will be much cheaper, very lightly armoured vehicles like IFVs or armored cars. Still the real fire support will come from artillery, precisely guided using drone mounted lasers and sensors, and firing DP ICM.  Deck armor remains a big weak point on the strongest tank and the overhead of a manned crew even more so, not to mention logistics/transportation simplification that comes from using light vehicles. More of them for less money and mostly equal battlefield survivability.

Mick Hayman
Margate and New Orleans

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