The AT Rifles guide

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Hello! I noticed, that very small amount of people uses AT Rifles. Common reason is that not everyone understands how to use this gun.
In this topic I’ll try to explain how, why and for what purpose you need to use this weapon, and also I will show how to destroy pz II C and T-60 with it.
First question that you may have: “Why do I need AT Rifle, if I have dynamite?”, well, you can’t throw it very far (about 15-20 meters), and tank can try to ride away, PTRD has 40 mm armor penetration at 100 m distance, from where you can shoot stealthly.
Second question is: “So how I must use it?”. The main thing - know your enemy’s weak spots and know your tasks: if tank rides straight to the point - immobilize it, already at th spot - kill th crew or blow it up.

Further I’ll show weak spots of german tank pz II C and conventional signs (screenshots were taken in War Thunder):

  1. Gunner
  2. Driver
  3. Commander

Green - tank crew.
Red - may cause fire or explosion.

Front view:

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Well, you you can’t do much at this point, front armor is the strongest. You can try to shoot out gunner or caterpillar tracks, but they destroy in 3 shots.

Left view:

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Here you can see ammo racks and fuel tank, you can’t shoot gunner because cannon protects him.

Rear view:

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From here you also see fuel tank, and you can shoot gunner. Engine is located in the right of fuel tank.

Right view:

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The weakest side of this tank. Here you can see 2-nd fuel tank, ammo racks and all crew members.

Update:

I studied T-60 and ready to share to you with my observations. Notice, that german AT Rifle has weaker armor penetration not 40 mm like PTRD, but 30 at 100 meters distance.

Further I’ll show weak spots of soviet tank T-60 and conventional signs (screenshots were taken in War Thunder):

  1. Gunner
  2. Driver

Green - tank crew.
Red - may cause fire or explosion.
White - engine.

Front view:

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As always front armor is the strongest. Unlike german tank T-60 has it’s gunner right in the middle of tank turret.

Left view:

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The weakest side of this tank. You can shoot everything from here: crew members, ammo racks located vertically and horizontally, and enormous fuel tank. Also you can shoot gunner, but he is protected by a machinegun.

Rear view:

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Gunner is located right in the centre of tank turret. Here’s more interesting situation with fuel tank, because german AT Rifle armor penetration vary a lot in distance. So here’s a simple rule - shoot at marked up spot only if you are in small range to the tank. Also if you whant to immobilize this tank - shoot in the radiator grid to destroy radiator.

Right view:

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You can easily shoot the driver, and also you may try to shoot the gunner, but he is protected by cannon. It’s possible to destroy the engine from here.

That’s all, guide’s over, sorry my english if I had any mistakes, I came from russian speaking section.
Here are some of my AT Rifle moments, have a good day!:

7 Likes
2

This is amazing. Thank you.

Could you also do the same for tank vs tank battles with the T-60 and PZ2? People always suggest playing War Thunder and that I don’t really intend on doing.

Again thank you for this.

3

would you look at this!

great effort!

personally i love to shoot at the engines first,
doing that, it will burn the tank in around 10 seconds. forcing to the crew to leave the tank.

otherwise, a very good job ^^

1 Like
4

Well written. I myself was planning on releasing a video guide on the topic, may I use your images?

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5

I was planning on including tank vs tank in my anti-tank video guide as well.

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Handy little guide, thanks a bunch!

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Sure, why not?

8

Does ptrd41 have to shoot horizontally at the tank? Why is it difficult for me to cause damage or even miss the target if I shoot at a slightly angle?

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if you use any at rifles, you could try to pen when angled, but you have to be sure that the tank it’s not angled 10/20°. the best idea, is to engage every tank from the sides.

so you can be sure and most likely, will able to pen any tank.

because angles might gonna bounce your shoots.

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Generally you want to hit the armor plates flat on :slight_smile:

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Does ptrd41 have to shoot horizontally at the tank? Why is it difficult for me to cause damage or even miss the target if I shoot at a slightly angle?

Armor is more effective when it is at an angle, not only does it cause the bullet to glance off the armored plate at high angles, but it also increases the amount of armor the bullet has to go through

I’ve posted a visual example of this below

image

as you can see, even though all 3 plates are the same thickness, an anti tank round would have to go through more steel in order to penetrate the angled armor plates

this is why shooting tanks at an angle makes them tougher to penetrate

(Hint: @5762269 it might be worth mentioning this when you make your video on tanks)

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Perfect post, good job :+1:
Playing AT rifles is tricky right now because they are bugged out.
The main problem is that PTRD can’t penetrate
panzers frontaly while it should. I also saw that all AT rifles don’t create shrapnel inside the tanks at all. All these facts and you get the reason why people don’t use AT rifles. PTRD was very effective before tigers and panthers came out but in this game, we need 10 shots to take a panzer out. I don’t really know if the german one has the same issue