Their positions had to be carefully selected and once engaged, they generally could not redeploy. Experience strongly suggested that towed AT guns were less effective than self-propelled AT weapons and took heavier casualties.
This specific point, let me doubt that, at least, SPA/SP-ATG could have similar defensive value such as:
Maybe it should be get defense at 3? But this could be too unbalanced, and make this unit too much interesting.
Mechanized Artillery (Assault Gun)
Attack: 2 (3) with Tank
Defense: 3
Move: 2
Cost: 5
Can only blitz when paired to a Tank.
Infantry Support: Give +1A to a paired Infantry or Mechanized Infantry
Tank Hunter as a tank support ability: Get +1A when paired to a Tank.
This unit cannot give and get both bonus as Inf support & Tank support when teamed with both MI and Tank on attack. Player must choose which bonus is given.
Maybe we should understand that it is on offense that “towed AT guns were less effective”.
So, that way we can keep, the more generally accepted A2 D2 M2 Cost 5 as the basis for Mechanized Artillery:
Mechanized Artillery (Assault Gun)
Attack: 2 (3) with Tank
Defense: 2 (3) with Tank
Move: 2
Cost: 5
Can only blitz when paired to a Tank.
Infantry Support: Give +1A to a paired Infantry or Mechanized Infantry
Tank Hunter as a Tank support ability: Get +1A/D when paired to a Tank.
This unit cannot give and get both bonus as Inf support & Tank support when teamed with both MI and Tank on attack. Player must choose which bonus is given.
And its defensive counter-measure should be this Anti-Tank Unit:
Anti-Tank Artillery-3
On offense, it is acting like Artillery on Infantry support,
slightly inferior, since it needs to be transported within sight of the enemy,
but it is clearly better on defense with deep entrenched position combined with Infantry.
Attack 2
Defense 3
Move 1
Cost 5
Gives +1 Attack / +1 Defense to 1 Infantry
@CWO:
@Baron:
Is it correct to say Anti-tank Artillery, even if ATGun is only a direct fire weapon?
In artillery jargon, a “gun” in the strict sense of the term is always a direct-fire weapon, meaning a tube artillery weapon designed to shoot at an elevation between 0 degrees and 45 degrees. A tube artillery weapon designed to fire shells at land targets at elevations of 45 degrees and higher (meaning an indirect-fire weapon) is called a howitzer.
“Anti-tank gun” is (to my knowledge) the commonly used term for the type of weapon we’re discussing here. It’s possible that such weapons are also referred to as “anti-tank artillery” (though personally I’ve never heard the term used) because they’re artillery pieces and they’re used against tanks…but as far as I know, the more usual practice is to call these things anti-tank guns. It’s a bit like the practice of calling submarines “boats” rather than “ships”, even though one could plausibly use either term.
One thing to be careful of, however, is this. As I said, it would be reasonable to argue that an anti-tank gun could be called an anti-tank artillery piece because it’s an artillery piece and it’s used against tanks. It would, however, not be correct to make the opposite argument: that all artillery pieces can be considered anti-tank weapons. Not all artillery pieces are capable of being used against tanks. Because of their operational characteristics (their sighting mechanism, the speed at which they can be trained, the elevation of which they’re capable, their rate of fire and so forth), some artillery pieces – especially the big ones – would be utterly or virtually incapable of hitting a tank (especially a moving one) if their crews tried to use them in this capacity. So my recommendation would be to simply stick to the straightforward term “anti-tank gun” because then it will be perfectly clear what’s being talked about.
As I want to create a specific unit meant to figure all kinds of counter-measure against Tank, I think I will finally stick to Anti-Tank Artillery unit.
So this is not limited to the Gun in itself (the main weapon against Tank, as you clearly showed), but can include other kinds of artillery weapons which can be part of the defensive features to slow down, destroy or break Tanks and other vehicles (as the Wiki showed).
This name also have the benefits to keep the basic features of Artillery unit:
Moving at the same M1,
Giving the same +1A to Infantry.
On offense, it is less efficient than a pure Artillery unit: A2 for 5 IPCs instead of 4 IPCs.
When combined with 1 Infantry: A2+A2= A4 for 7 IPCs while it gives the same A4 for 8 IPCs.
8 Inf+ 8 Art vs 7 Inf+ 7 Anti-Tank Art
Overall %*: A. survives: 79% D. survives: 20.3% No one survives: 0.7%
And also less efficient than a Mechanized Artillery which can combine with Tank on a 1 on 1 unit basis.
But, on the same IPCs basis, still get the better on offense because Tank and Mech Art move at 2 and are costlier.
Which is explained by the combined arms with Infantry.
But on defense, it is a pretty solid one when combined with 1 Infantry unit:
It gives 2 Defense @3 = D6, 2 hits for 8 IPCs.
The same Defensive value as 3 Infantry units @2 = D6, but with 3 hits for 9 IPCs.
Which still makes 3 Infantry much better on the same IPCs basis comparison.
But 3 Infantry on offense only get A3 and 3 hits.
Compared to the A4 of the Anti-Tank combined arms, it is weaker:
24 Infantry (72 IPCs) @1 vs 9 ATArt+INF (72 IPCs), 18 hits @2 =
Overall %*: A. survives: 33.9% D. survives: 65.8% No one survives: 0.3%
So this Anti-Tank Artillery have its own niche.
Artillery paired with 1 Infantry is still better on offense but not on defense.
Infantry is still better on defense but not on offense.
And at 5 IPCs, it provides a substantial units which can boost the offensive/defensive value of Infantry.
And against Mechanized Infantry, it doesn’t have the offensive value given by combined arms with Tank unit but the defensive capacity is better while it is at the expense of the mobility.