Ceiling substructure - battens and hammer-in dowels

Yep, that is formally correct. But you just want to drop the ceiling, right?

For yourself, you can certainly decide not to do something properly. But you shouldn't encourage others to do so. What is the extra effort to do it correctly? 12€ and one hour?

Have you looked at the "Processing Guideline Drywall" by Rigips (page 172, free-hanging ceiling systems)? There you can use frame anchors because the support profile is attached to the wall below the ceiling. Hammer one in every 75cm, lay profiles across the short corridor side as a supporting structure and fix with a squeeze connection, attach the panels, done. It really can't get any easier.

I will not attach a support profile to the wall. There will only be a substructure made of battens at the ceiling.

Right or wrong, I’ll leave that open. What matters to me is how it can be done or how the community does it and what experiences have been gathered.

I think with TOX anchors and the appropriate screws it will definitely hold. I think it will also hold with hammer anchors; I’m not hanging an elephant on it after all. Just always play it safe.

Has anyone had experience with metal anchors?

I planned to drill the counter battens in 40x60mm into the ceiling and then level the support battens in 30x50mm on the ceiling with 6x60mm adjustment screws. It should work.

I will not attach any support profile to the wall. A substructure made of battens will only be installed on the ceiling.

You are looking for a solution that makes all the drilling and screwing easier for you. For a hallway measuring, for example, 2m*6m, you only need 21 drill holes with the method described in the mentioned PDF (which you can also safely equip with impact anchors) to fix the entire ceiling. The structural difference is that your ceiling is not "hung," but "laid" – the appearance remains the same, and the ceiling hangs just as high/low.

Yes, the (steel) profiles are somewhat more expensive than battens (about €1/m more), but for the mentioned hallway of 2x6m you only need a total of 36m, whereas the batten variant at a 50cm spacing would be around 54m, resulting in additional costs of about €15. In return, you save yourself about 80 drill holes/screws. Also, you can skip the hassle with the adjustment screws; you only need to align the profiles attached all around the wall with a spirit level (or a laser). In the 2x6 example, that would be a total of 6 profiles.

One should not motivate others to do that.

Well, the original poster wants to be motivated. Either for proper processing or for pragmatic processing. I would (and have done so) choose the pragmatic version. I have not written more than that. Most other posts motivate proper processing.