You have to duck pretty low for that gun shield to deflect a bullet coming at you.
With these strengths and weaknesses in mind, what is the best way to design an anti-tank gun for the purposes of a real-time strategy game? Let's first look at how a couple of games have implemented them and then see how they should ideally be used in a game.
Codename: Panzers
The World War II RTS Codename: Panzers has quite a few anti-tank guns available for each side. The game employs a currency system that uses prestige for purchasing units. Between each battle or before starting a multiplayer game, players can choose what units they wish to buy within the prestige limit allowed. Anti-tank guns cost considerably less than tanks, usually 1/4 or less of the prestige cost of a self-propelled vehicle. They tend to have about the same range as the tanks in the game and deal a similar amount of damage.
However, they have several major weaknesses that limit their usefulness. The first is that their seemingly low prestige cost ignores a couple of additional costs. They have to be manned by an infantry unit in order to fire, which is not included in their price. Additionally, they are extremely slow when moved by this infantry unit alone so you will probably have to pay for a truck to hitch them up to.
Flak-88 towed by a German truck.
Some irritating interface issues make the process of towing an anti-tank gun with a truck a real hassle. When you start a game, your AT-gun will be lying unmanned on the battlefield. So, you probably want to hitch it to a truck. Click on the truck, tell it to pick up the AT gun. Then click on whichever infantry squad you want to man the gun and place them in the truck as well. Then, when you wish to deploy the anti-tank gun, you have to click on the truck, click on the unhitch button, then click on the infantry in the truck to get them out, click on the infantry who are outside the truck, then click on the unhitched AT-gun to get them to man it. By the time this process is complete, any tank driving by will have long bypassed the position you wished to deploy your AT gun in and you will have to try again later. Or it will have driven up and blown up the AT gun, truck, and machine gunned all of your infantry down.
The anti-tank gun in the middle is the least valuable part of this entire force.
The worst part is that there is no way to get around this process, you can't have the infantry, truck, and AT gun be considered as one unit at all. The control groups get messed up when you place the infantry in the truck and the AT-gun gets lost as well when it is hitched up.
The final glaring weakness of anti-tank guns is that they are extremely vulnerable to everything else in the game. Enemy infantry units, particularly snipers, can kill the crew in a few moments if they get close. Tanks can blow up most of the AT-guns in three to four hits from their main gun, while it takes an AT-gun more than ten hits to kill even the weakest tanks.
The only time they are useful is when you have multiple infantry units facing an unexpected armored vehicle and there happens to be an abandoned AT-gun nearby. In that case, it's great to have one infantry squad grab it and start firing at enemy tanks in the area. For any offensive purpose they are completely useless. Unfortunately, for most of the campaign you are supposed to be the aggressor so there isn't much use for a unit that is only moderately valuable in defensive positions. I never buy them during the campaign, you're always better off buying tanks.
How I leave anti-tank guns in Codename: Panzers-unmanned and idle.
Company of Heroes
Company of Heroes, also a World War II RTS, does a much better job of providing a useful anti-tank gun. The original two factions of the game, the Americans and the Wehrmacht, both have an anti-tank gun that can be built early in the game. They cost less manpower and have no fuel cost, so they are a lot cheaper than a tank. They differ significantly from those in Codename: Panzers.
German Pak-38 in Company of Heroes.
The anti-tank guns are both manned by a three man crew that comes with the gun's purchase cost. There is no need to buy an extra infantry unit just to use the gun. Two men are required to move the weapon about and fire it, the extra man fires his pistol or carbine at enemy infantry within range until one of the other crewmen die and he is needed to take their place. If two crewmen die, the third crewman automatically dies and the gun becomes abandoned for any infantry unit to pick up. The crew is extremely vulnerable to any enemy infantry in the area. A sniper can wipe out the crew with two shots, making it critically important to keep them safe from enemy soldiers.
This makes them sound less useful than the Codename: Panzer version, but they make up for their relative weakness against infantry by being much more useful against tanks. They have a longer range than tanks and also have special abilities that allow them to do more damage than tanks are able to inflict in return. The German Pak-38 can camouflage itself to save its shots for the vulnerable side and rear armor of American tanks. The American 57mm gun can fire armor-piercing shells that do much more damage and also penetrate the thickest armored German tanks like the Tiger and Panther. Most importantly, the anti-tank guns in Company of Heroes can kill most enemy tanks in a few hits instead of taking ten or more like in Codename: Panzers.
American 57mm anti-tank gun.
They are also much stronger defensively against tanks than their Codename: Panzers counterparts. Tanks usually target the crew manning the gun instead of the gun itself, and they tend to miss when doing so. This gives anti-tank guns a lot more survivability against armor. They can be vulnerable when tanks get close, as some of the faster tanks can easily get behind the AT-gun and fire on the exposed crew that way, but that's only an issue when the AT-gun is in the field alone without any support. With infantry with anti-tank capabilities or other tanks in the area of an anti-tank gun, it's very risky to try and get behind an anti-tank gun to kill the crew.
This anti-tank gun needs some additional support if it wants to survive an enemy armored assault.
The one problem with anti-tank guns in Company of Heroes is that they are great for most 1v1 maps but not maneuverable enough on the larger maps. They take forever to move from the base where they are built to the combat areas that tend to be around the middle of the map. There is no way to hitch them up to a half-track or other vehicle to get them into action faster.
Conclusion
Although the Codename: Panzers version of an anti-tank gun is a lot more realistic, the Company of Heroes version is a lot more desirable for the purposes of a RTS game. However, the ability to attach the gun to a truck to move it faster is a great addition to how they are treated in Company of Heroes. So, an ideal anti-tank gun in a RTS should have these characteristics to be useful for players:
-Less expensive than armored vehicles
-Much slower and less maneuverable than vehicles
-Vulnerable to enemy infantry, particularly snipers
-Greater range and good damage against vehicles
-Need to be treated as one cohesive unit-not as a combined infantry, truck, and gun that is an interface nightmare
-Should be able to be attached to vehicles to move into combat faster if needed
Any AT gun that meets those requirement will be a great strategic addition to a RTS game featuring tanks.
Although guns like this might be a little too large to move around the battlefield easily.
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