How to Kill Automaton Tanks in Helldivers 2

The AV split that matters

The tank’s front sits at armor value 5, but its rear vents are armor value 3. Using the rule in the armor penetration guide: your AP has to beat the AV to deal full damage, equal is reduced to 65%, and lower ricochets for zero. So the front demands anti-tank class, while the rear vents are open to weapons far below that threshold. That asymmetry is the whole answer. A tank that is functionally immune to your primary from the front can still be chewed apart from behind, which is why “tanks are stratagem checks” holds true when you lack anti-armor but not when you can simply flank.

Getting to the rear

This is a positioning problem first. Smoke, terrain breaks, and hard cover let you close distance or peek the rear safely, and having one player draw its attention while another works the back is the standard method — its turret does not track at the speed it kills at, though tracking speed differs by variant. Whether you push in close or take shots from cover depends on which variant you are facing and what it is armed with, so read the turret behavior before committing. Explosives placed on the rear — grenades, thermite, or shaped anti-tank rounds — finish it quickly, and Eagle or Orbital calls do the job from any angle if you cannot get behind it. See explosion radii for placement mechanics. A general discipline point: if nobody brought reliable anti-armor, disengaging and repositioning beats trading shots with something you cannot penetrate. Numbers and variant behavior move with patches, so confirm the current values in-game rather than trusting any fixed shot count.