I was playing Rotterdam Grand Operations, defenders dont get AT gun emplacements, not even towable AT guns. I'll be honest, I hate defending in both breakthrough, and in grand operations against tanks. Frankly its not fun being murdered by machines that if they aint stupid, exist too far away to be attacked yet have the ability to inflict so much damage on you. I feel like DICE never had time to set up separate map balancing for the other game modes, and it shows in the awkward fortifications, the lack of defensive measures, or even spawnable tanks for the defense.
Why is that anyway? Why do defenders frequently get no vehicle spawns vs Attackers? I understand balance, but again, the lack of any emplacements to target faraway armored targets makes it pure pain to defend flags. I dont like leaving servers when I get switched to defending, so my solution is not play BFV all instead of being a coward that leaves servers. When I play, I stay for the long haul, defense or attack, except defending is becoming so unfun, my only recourse is to not play at all.
I've complained about the field gun aiming oversight in BFV and I'm sure if DICE cotton on they'll patch it. All they really need to do to make them significantly more usable is have the reload a manual functions exactly like BF1. Auto reload, as others have expressed, disrupts the camera perspective and makes it near impossible to track your shot trajectory. BF1 had it right, letting you pace your own shots.
Field guns are actually another noteworthy thing typical of a Battlefield game where their function and implementation is quite fine, but the issue is passive negligence from the players themselves. I've lost count of the amount of time our flags and home base have had field guns and portable AA just sitting there, no-one towing them to locations. I'll often do it myself.
Field guns in breakthrough and Grand Operations are basically unused or nonexistent. For example, one, in Narvik, the emplacement field guns are useless to use, as the front facing portion is absolutely 100% a easy kill for snipers vs BF1. Its impossible to use a AT gun in such a scenario. Frankly the MGs are more armored in the front than the AT guns and therefore more useful than the AT guns. (In BF1, the MGs were unarmored vs the field guns) The limited field of fire, the lack of 360 makes it virtually useless beyond certain limited contexts that again run into problems with front defensive armor. Third, the lack of splash damage that applies to tanks also applies to the AT gun, meaning unlike in BF1, again, its near useless against troops. And with the shit aiming mechanic, frankly the MG is more useful than the AT gun at present.
The spawning of the halftracks and the AA/AT towables are also severely bugged, i no longer trust the spawn screen to actually tell me whats available. Also the lack of 360 means the time for me to move the halftrack and the towable AT gun into position means I need to first find a decent spot, bring my halftrack rear to present to the enemy, then drop the AT gun, then with that action, if im fighting alone, I've one, effectively lost a halftrack to the enemy, two, get maybe 5 shots off before being headshotted. Oh, if im facing a tank, i would already be absolutely dead before even firing the 2nd shot. The operation of a halftrack and AT gun would require basically a entire squad, if you could pull it off, great, fantastic but that requires teamwork.
Also the removal of spawnables at certain points means the value of whatever you have increases by a lot, using a halftrack in such a manner is not likely to be as beneficial as simply using it as a mobile MG vs the struggle of moving a towable over frequently bugged terrain. Did they ever fix the towable speed bug? I dont bother with towing anything anymore, i just drop it and move on so i dunno.
