I just joined Enlisted but been playing War Thunder for a while.
As I wasn’t in CBT, maybe the AT soldier with the AT rifle is originally designed to carry the anti-tank explosive pack, and only his class has that capacity, because his class name and symbol looks like designed around explosive, and not the AT rifle.
Then you could see how OP tank will be in a game mode where each squad only has one AT guy who has the TNT pack. Because in the current game mode, we have tanks who went on rampages even when everybody got a TNT pack. Imagine when I have only one guy with the explosive pack (who I would have to unlock at Campaign 5 say) , and when I needed him he is dead. There is no way I could stop a tank if the explosive is rarer and classlocked.
The current build made tanks easier to kill, compare to the class lock.
And in late stage we would have panzerfaust/panzerschreck and bazooka(imported) for the T-34. IS-2, Panther and Tigers. So I think the AT class would get these Anti-tank rockets and they would probably be class locked.
I read them on the news update and I know Gaijin has the technology. That technology to run rockets/armor pen in range and degree/bounce/hitbox is mature and readily available as they are using the same engine for War Thunder.
main thing I’m going to miss from the tests is lobbing rockets at a tank a couple hundred yards out
90% sure spaced armor did absolutely nothing to stop my bazooka but probably too late to mention
I’ve only played the Moscow campaign so far, and I’m satisfied with how easy tanks are to kill. I keep a tank squad in my lineup, and use it often. If I get killed it’s usually because I did something dumb and deserved it.
Examples of dumb things:
Stopping next to a building and just sitting there. An enemy goes through the building, gets behind me, drops a satchel charge and kills me.
I charged into an area where an enemy tank was operating and he got the first shot off. My fault. You can hear enemy tanks, or at least hear their cannon, see the cloud of smoke, see the tracers from their MG, etc. If you just charge in like that you had it coming.
Stopping in general. If you stop, you should be in an open area where you can’t be snuck up on without friendlies in sight seeing them coming and shooting them. If you’re in an area with no friendlies, well, then that’s just your own fault for overextending.
Right now a well-played tank can kill way, way more troops than it costs the player who controls the tank. And that’s with tanks dying as easily as they do. A crappily played tank deserves to die, so it’s all good. Playing a tank in this game shouldn’t be just a license to wipe out the enemy team. There has to be a counter, and since we’re playing an unrealistic game where just a few people are controlling the actions of many people, and we’re playing with unpredictable force organization where you have no say in what classes of troops your teammates bring into the game, having these explosion packs distributed as widely as they do just gives troops a fighting chance when a tank does show up. Real life forces have an organization that attempts to cover all the needs and contingencies they may be expected to face, including specialized anti-tank forces. We aren’t playing a game with this level of organizational design or this many people available to play the various roles. So instead everyone gets a satchel charge and an arm like an NFL quarterback, and every run of the mill grunt is a wannabe Carlos Hathcock. It is what it is.
I can’t comment on how hard Pz. IIs are to kill since I’ve played almost exclusively the Germans.
I recall doing well with my Pz. II but when it came to other tanks it depended entirely on whether I got the first shots off or not. It was fairly easily dealt with if the other guy could hit me first.
Now I play the Pz. III E, which isn’t quite as handy against troops because the 37mm cannon isn’t the match of the 20mm in the anti-personnel role. I play it because it’s vastly more survivable against enemy tanks, and when I have any inkling that an enemy tank is on the field I make it my goal to go after it and kill it. It still gets blown up by satchel charges, but if I play it smartly, I evade a lot of these and kill a lot of enemies before I finally go down.
I’m curious about why my tanks almost never seem to go down to Soviet anti-tank rifles. I know they have them. I keep a Panzerbuechse in all of my squads that can take one, and I play it all the time. It’s not only reasonably effective against tanks from a distance (from the side - it can damage them from the front but it’s much harder and usually takes more shots). I get much joy from killing tanks with the Panzerbuechse, and I’m curious why in my own tanks I don’t fall to Soviet AT rifles very often at all (that I can tell at least, though I usually know what killed me).
Hmm, so the Soviet AT rifles don’t pen as well as the Panzerbuechse?
With the Panzerbuechse I get a lot of hits that don’t kill anyone, or that just do some damage to components but then the tank gets killed by something else and I don’t get any credit. I am getting a lot better at knowing where to aim from the side to make sure I kill some crewmembers, or start fires, or what have you. It’s a good feeling to get to the side or rear of a tank and take a good, clean, aimed shot through the center of the turret and kill the gunner, or kill the engine and start a fire, or kill the driver. I’d have to think the Soviet AT rifles could do the same if shot into the sides or rear of a German tank, but I’ve never tried it, so I don’t really know.
I don’t think the PTRD has less pen, I just think Panzers are better armored in general compared to Soviet tanks. And they’re roomier so you aren’t always going to be hitting something vulnerable.