I've been reading the back issues of Point Blank! (nice little 'zine, btw) and I'm puzzled by the article "Back to the Basics: The Acquisition Debate". I don't understand the following:
"In an urbanized area, when you are the attacker, and most of your opposition can be found in +3 or greater TEM, it might be a better thing to avoid placing at ATT aq counter ...".
I'm not sure why it would ever make sense to NOT place an ATT aq counter.
TIA
In an urban environment, most often the range of AFV firing at infantry is within 6 hexes, so the Basic TH# for the Infantry Target Type is 8. Because ranges are short in a densely built up area, AFV will usually be BU. With enemy Infantry within Buildings, they will have +2 or +3 TEM when unconcealed. This means that your Final TH# on the ITT without Acquisition will often be 5 (with a 27.8% to hit) or 4 (with a 16.7% chance to hit).
If you hit, though, your chances of doing actual damage is good. Say, you have the common caliber of 75mm, you'll get a 14 FP flat or 12 FP flat if you use the IFT, which are both dangerous. Usually, though, when you are finally done gaining Acquisition to improve your To Hit chances, the enemy skulks away and reemerges someplace else to deny you tracking him with your Acquisition.
If you fire Area Target Type when the AFV is BU, you have a Basic TH# of 7, which drops to a Final TH# of 6 for being BU, which boils down to 41.7%. So while your chances to hit are much better, your FP will be halved to 7 FP or 6 FP if using the IFT for a 75mm Gun. What is worse, TEM is applied. A 7 FP or 6 FP Effects roll with a +2 or +3 DRM is nothing that really strikes fear into anyone.
Whatever Target Type you are using, you want to place an Acquisition Counter in any case. But what the article might have meant could be that the author is of the opinion, that one should use ITT rather than ATT. IMHO much depends on the caliber of your Gun: If you have a big 150mm Assault Gun, I'd probably go for ATT, because even with halved FP for resolution, it is still dangerous with decent immediate TH chances. If you have small caliber Guns, you might rather want to use IFE if possible to avoid the TH roll or use the ITT, because otherwise the FP and TEM will make your attack probably neglible.
Althogether, this highlights somewhat one of the rare weaknesses in the ASL system:
In practice, Assault Guns were just made for the purpose of dislodging Infantry from well protected positions. Within the body of ASL rules, they are especially ill suited for this very purpose unless the attacker has time (to acquire) and the opponent has no choices to skulk (to avoid acquisition and thus increased TH chances at full FP for the effects DR without the benefit of building TEM).
von Marwitz