PaK-43 viability in the meta game

So been trying out the PaK43 in my last 10 games as Germans. Some of my observations

1)480mp for a fixed gun which can be decrewed by anything and everything in the soviet arsenal with such ease it ain't funny (80mm/120mm/katyushas/il2 bomb strikes/incendiary strikes/infantry not to mention being ultra easy to flank with tanks). Getting pios to recrew the gun is fine against infantry assaults or the incendiary barrage but all it takes is 1 il2 bomb strike to destroy the gun.

2)Costs 25 POP for a 3 man crew !!!! (an AT gun which costs quarter ur manpower wtf is relic thinking)

3)Misses more than hits at long range (had an su85 stay in range for 3 shots and it managed to miss 2 of them)

4)LOVES to target infantry instead of vehicles revealing its position.

5)Has no concept of turning to automatically engage hostile armor away from its cone of fire.

6)Requires you to research battle phase 3 costing more mp and fuel which makes no sense whatsoever (might as well save up for panthers if you are going down the T4 route)

7)Only positive thing with it is that it can shoot through buildings (useless on open maps like steppes)

Conclusion with the amount of time, manpower and pop cap required for this gun, its almost completely useless.

What do you guys think RELIC should do to improve the 43 ?

Personally the biggest requirement I feel is that it should have a "hold fire" button along with a pop cap reduction/4 man crew and mp reduction to make it more viable.

So been trying out the PaK43 in my last 10 games as Germans. Some of my observations

1)480mp for a fixed gun which can be decrewed by anything and everything in the soviet arsenal with such ease it ain't funny. Getting pios to recrew the gun is fine against infantry assaults or the incendiary barrage but all it takes is 1 il2 bomb strike to destroy the gun.

2)Costs 25 POP for a 3 man crew !!!! (an AT gun which costs quarter ur manpower wtf is relic thinking)

3)Misses more than hits at long range (had an su85 stay in range for 3 shots and it managed to miss 2 of them)

4)LOVES to target infantry instead of vehicles revealing its position.

5)Has no concept of turning to automatically engage hostile armor away from its cone of fire.

6)Only positive thing with it is that it can shoot through buildings (useless on open maps like steppes)

Conclusion with the amount of time, manpower and pop cap required for this gun, its almost completely useless.

What do you guys think RELIC should do to improve the 43 ?

Personally the biggest requirement I feel is that it should have a "hold fire" button along with a pop cap reduction/4 man crew and mp reduction to make it more viable.

Increase the radius or change it to the 88mm flak cannon is my solution, I rarely ever see it nowadays and I play quite a bit of 4v4 too.

To change it so that the crew cannot be killed is also a viable solution. It worked for the british in vCOH so I don't see why the crew should be killable here, especially since the unit pop is extremely high and Russian more often than not build Katyuuuuushas.

You forgot to mention that this thing is an absolute beast at killing ANY armour.

It like 2 shots basically every Soviet tank, vets up super fast, and costs zero fuel yet counters all armour.

IMO it's fine the way it is. I've used it in several games recently.

I build it in almost every 2v2, it's a very good fuel-cheap counter to any armor.
But it's really annoying that it can be one-shot so easily; one bombing run, or one Katyusha or 120mm precision strike -> 480mp wasted.

480 manpower is not so much compared to 360 for an ATgun which also misses all day at long range, loves too focus infantry, has no concept of automatic turning to engage flanking armor, and is destroeyed very easily by almost all indirect fire. And does way less damage. Conclusion: Its only 1/3 more costly than a At gun.

P.S. I find it also annoying that it gets destroyed by offmaps, instead of only decrewed and almost destroyed. But most of them are heavy ammobased. And most of the time those will then ONLY hit the Pak43. On the other hand, decrewing alone should be often the only thing it needs too start a tank rush and finish your opponent.

P.P.S Did you try using the Pak in conjunction with an Ostwind. It may shoot down these Planes.

In almost all games I've built it, it usually kills a few tanks and scares off any armor in a good radius until it dies. You can really feel how the tanks stay away when a Pak43 is up.
I'd actually say the scare effect alone is worth it, and you can usually have one more up before the first one dies.

It needs a button that stops it from firing at any infantry (or not shoot infantry at all). Why would you shoot an armor piercing high velocity round at infantry anyways?

Other than that it is fine I think. Hilarious to kill Su-85s through terrain.

It needs a button that stops it from firing at any infantry (or not shoot infantry at all). Why would you shoot an armor piercing high velocity round at infantry anyways?

Other than that it is fine I think. Hilarious to kill Su-85s through terrain.

+1

On the subject of population, 25 is pretty high but is necessary to prevent spamming (how stupid would it be if the Germans had like three of these at the same time and a decent army size). Perhaps a slight decrease is in order but nothing drastic.

It needs a button that stops it from firing at any infantry (or not shoot infantry at all). Why would you shoot an armor piercing high velocity round at infantry anyways?

Definitely. I feel this way about all the anti-tank guns, actually. They tend to just shoot and give away their positions.

Oh, and about the pop: if it gets decrewed and you then re-crew with pioneers (1 pop per man) the pop of the re-crewed gun is much lower. When you build the gun it spawns a gun crew. Each crew member costs 4 pop and 30 manpower to reinforce. The population cap usage of the gun reflects the units that are manning it; ie if you re-crew with pioneers or grenadiers, the pop cap usage will decrease, since individual grenadiers and pioneers use only 1 pop. Pioneers are also cheaper to reinforce (25 MP v 30 MP).

Also, isn't it only 12 population or did that get secretly changed? Guess I'll have to try one soon

It is 21 pop

The gun's pretty good and can fire through buildings. Puts a lot of pressure on SU-85 users. As with both howitzers, there are way too many off-maps that can one-hit destroy the gun. The decrewing isn't as big an issue as the ease of gun destruction.

An airstrike is 'only' 240 ammo...

For that price I don't expect the crew of a targeted, fixed gun to just get up again and dust their uniforms off when the plane has passed.

The Pak43 is a awesome weapon! You need to make sure that infantry cant get near it. Usually i use a mg or mg bunker and/or mines for it. it`s NOT easy to destroy while there are hard counters ofcourse. it`s a good panic button aswell if your low on fuel and need heavy AT. It can shoot through houses/forests so you can glue it behind a house for additional protection. It does need maintenance like repairs and recrewing with pio`s. In combination with a 2vs2 partner who goes for a Elephant.. Man that can be hard nut to crack.

I find the Pak43 to be pretty good at its job. You really have to exploit the fact that it can fire through everything and put it in an out of the way spot, ie behind a building to block Katyusha shots. Also, I don't think it can fail to penetrate anything (penetration 400), even a stolen Elefant. It does require a bit of babysitting because you have to manually aim it, but I haven't had any real issues with that.

That being said, I would be extremely happy for a "fire only at armor" button on all ATGs, Pak43 included.

Its Vet1 might be bugged, though, like how the other weak point abilities were. I tried using it a couple of times but it never seems to do anything (or else I'm just being oblivious and missing something).

Its Vet1 might be bugged, though, like how the other weak point abilities were. I tried using it a couple of times but it never seems to do anything (or else I'm just being oblivious and missing something).

My first guess would be that unlike the normal shot, the target weak point vet1 ability won't go through any kind of cover because it keeps getting blocked by stuff like stone fences even with paks and stugs.

even a stolen Elefant.

Just out of curiosity: Did anyone manage to steal an elephant in multiplayer?

I would sure like to see such a replay!

An airstrike is 'only' 240 ammo...

For that price I don't expect the crew of a targeted, fixed gun to just get up again and dust their uniforms off when the plane has passed.

Personally I think you should actually have to follow up on a strafing run to kill the gun itself. The bombs that only affect one thing should probably kill it.

That said, the Soviet ones are reasonably fair, honestly, since they're both 200-240 munis. The Ostheer 120 muni light artillery barrage kills a howitzer, which is ridiculous, as does railway arty and some of the various bombs. So, almost every Ostheer doctrine has an endgame howitzer-killer, some of which are reasonably priced for that, others of which aren't.

I'd like to see the 200 muni hit-one-area abilities kill a PAK-43 gun/Howie gun, the 160-80 and strafing runs do a lot of gun damage but need some backup to kill it and the 120 muni Light Barrage decrew and do a bit of damage.

snipers can decrew it easily as well

I build it in almost every 2v2, it's a very good fuel-cheap counter to any armor.
But it's really annoying that it can be one-shot so easily; one bombing run, or one Katyusha or 120mm precision strike -> 480mp wasted.

+1. PAK43 is a must in 2v2 against most Soviet players (i.e. SU-85 spammers).

The only thing that annoys me is that you have to manually control its rotation.

Just out of curiosity: Did anyone manage to steal an elephant in multiplayer?

I would sure like to see such a replay!

my elefant got decrew once, but my enemy didn't got chance to steal it, my pio does