Would you consider anti-infantry performance as more important than anti-tank?

Hello, I'm pretty darned new, so if this is in the wrong section, I'm sorry.

Anyways, the question - is anti-infantry or anti-tank performance more important on an armored vehicle? Or does it depend on the nation and the doctrine used? I personally like the American approach of having great anti-infantry performance in the form of effective HE shells and machine guns, as well as having dedicated anti-tank units, though I recognize having anti-tank units more segregated poses problems with integration with the rest of the army.

 

Who you are fighting may be the most important factor. Not much was needed in the way of anti-tank performance in the Pacific for instance. Then there's the role your armored vehicle is performing. Does an infantry carrier need much in the way of anti-tank performance? On the other hand an AT vehicle really does need it. World War 2 lead to the concept of the Main Battle Tank which at one point was fairly balanced but AT performance came to be optimized at least for a while.

 

As lwd pointed out, what you might encounter tells you what you're going to need. In Europe it was possible to fight both infantry and tanks in the same battle and even at the same time. If you might encounter high-quality tanks or armored vehicles you're going to need a powerful AT gun. Since enemy infantry is usually always present, MGs and HE rounds for the cannon will be called for. It's my opinion that since tanks usually fire their cannon directly at a target, say a MG position, the effectiveness of the HE round doesn't have to be on the level of an artillery piece but some sort of HE round will definitely be needed.

 

Sometimes, however, the high velocity and large charges, while boosting anti armor capabilities tremendously, can seriously hurt performance against soft targets. For example, while the 6 pounder of the Commonwealth forces provided good anti-tank performance early in the war, the high explosive shell was nearly useless. The early models of the M4 Sherman had a different problem: while the HE shell was very effective, the armor penetration was lackluster. When the Americans upgunned their Shermans with many of the e3 models, many of the crews did not like the new gun because of its limited HE potential. Thoughts?

 

If the tank loses its protection ( soldiers ) it+s bye-bye time very soon. Then again infantry might not be able to attack hard targets without protection like West Wall. Yet they used panzerfausts with great success but without armor protection losses would have been greater. I believe. Germans then again surrounded the enemy instead of face-to-face combat in Blitzkrieg except for Kharkov march 1943 and Stalingrad. Some losses there...

 

I would pick AP performance even if there are not that many enemy tanks around, Against dug in AT guns a better HE may make a difference but spotting and engaging them effectively is the real issue, but if your AP routinely fails to knock out enemy armor you are in big trouble, look at the German and Italian experiences against T34s KVs and Matildas. Infantry is mostly a target for MGs unless well dug in. The "recon by fire" tactics sometimes used by Allied tankers are better suited to a lower velocity gun that will allow you to carry more ammo, but it's not that common a usage.

With a 75mm or bigger gun your HE may not be optimal but is still pretty scary, even extreme designs like the 17lb or the 75mm of the Panther (or today's120mm smoothbores) pack a pretty good HE punch.

The Soviets built just a handful of T34/57 and then stopped production, but at the time they were facing "mid generation" Pz III and Pz IV the F-34 76mm could easily deal with.

Ammo load is a different story, unless you know there is a lot of enemy armor around most of your rounds will be HE.