Jump to content

New features wish list!


Recommended Posts

Yeah, the ma-deuce would shred German halftracks...from any angle/range.

The confusion stems from the US Army slapping an "M" designator on every friggin' weapon system. So that infantry transported in an "M" halftrack, supported by "M" tanks, overwatched by "M" artillery, would use their "M" rifles firing "M" type ammunition. (Put any number of your choice after each letter "M". The number can repeat if you'd like.)

Based on the numbers you choose, that could be modern or WWII. M4 carbine vs. M1 Garand. M855 ball ammo or M2 ball ammo. M2 Machine gun or M240. M1 tank or M4. Etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 304
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I can't believe we're even discussing this. You seriously doubt a .50 BMG could knock out a halftrack? I mean I can understand questioning the degree of threat that a .30-cal class MG poses to a Hanomag, but Ma Deuce?

Yes I am serious. .50 cal is almost always mounted on armoured vehicles. I haven't checked the editor out to see if it available to infantry in CM, but I can't remember the last time I saw a squad armed with one. Your quote even refers to the .50 being mounted on a vehicle.

What I've seen on plenty of occasions is infantry armed with .30 cal weapons go through half track armour like a knife through butter. For me this inaccurately diminishes the usefulness of the half track.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes I am serious. .50 cal is almost always mounted on armoured vehicles. I haven't checked the editor out to see if it available to infantry in CM, but I can't remember the last time I saw a squad armed with one. Your quote even refers to the .50 being mounted on a vehicle.

What I've seen on plenty of occasions is infantry armed with .30 cal weapons go through half track armour like a knife through butter. For me this inaccurately diminishes the usefulness of the half track.

OK... Help me out here. YOU said:

If you present a decent combat source which says an M2 Browning could penetrate the armour of a sd kfz then fine. But I haven't found one. Without fail every source I've read says they could stand up to machine gun fire.
(emphasis added)

Notwithstanding C3k's comments regarding the confusion that can be caused by the U.S. Military "M" designation system, The ONLY "M2 Browning" MG deployed by the US Military in WWII was the .50 cal BMG "Ma Deuce". A .30 MG would be an M1919A4, M1919A6, or M1917A2. Hence my cite.

Also, the quote does not refer to the .50 BMG being used from a vehicle mount -- read the quote more closely. I think it pretty clearly describes a recon troop dismounting MGs (two .50 and one .30) from their 1/4 trucks (i.e., Jeeps), and deploying them from the ground; a common practice by recon units. But this is beside the point; you asked for a "combat source" cite stating that an "M2 Browning" could penetrate a Sd Kfz, and that's what I gave you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Odin,

You've obviously missed all those Ma Deuces on ring mounts for U.S. 6x6 trucks for air defense.

http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=312

See bottom of paragraph 4 (site's somehow got copy/paste blocked).

Here's a pic.

http://www.cckw.org/WEARE_RALLY__2005_241.JPG

YankeeDog,

Your economy of expression has "shorted" your argument. Sd.Kfz. is merely SonderKraftfahrzuege or "special purpose vehicle." There are MANY Sd.Kfz. designated vehicles which are NOT halftracks, let lone 250s or 251s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sd.Kfz._designations

KR,

The Breda's a good MG, good enough for the LRDG. Believe you're thinking of this awful thing. The FIAT-Revelli Modello 1914, which used oiled cartridges.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat-Revelli_Modello_1914

General observations: BARs during WW II in Europe were loaded with AP, not ball, for better cover penetration (Doubler, CLOSING WITH THE ENEMY). This is why the BAR fires on armored cars in the old war movies. MG-34s and MG-42s have three cartridges available, two of which are AP types.

http://www.lonesentry.com/manuals/german-infantry-weapons/mg34-machine-gun.html

http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/ttt07/new-german-machine-gun-mg42.html

c3k,

If you can find the penetration diagrams from CMx1, I'm sure you'll find that your statement is a bit of a reach. I've had .50 cal bounce off 251s on a bunch of occasions, and I can assure you the terminal ballistics modeling was done both carefully and with input from veterans. Compound angles plus angle off create a considerable increase in effective armor thickness. Granted, it's not so useful when the .50's firing from above the 251. And, yes, I'm well aware the .50 started the war classed, among other things, as an antitank weapon. I've seen official War Department film to that effect.

Regards,

John Kettler

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you remember when CMBO was upgraded with features from CMBB and CMAK?

Yeah, me either. THINK POSITIVE! There's a brand new horizon but people can't see it 'cause they are focused one the one from 10 years ago.

Mord.

Your question should have read : Do you remember when CMBB and CMAK were updated with features of CMBO?

Be assured, I can see the new horizon, but right now it takes damn lot of plotting way points to get there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Odin,

If memory serves, the .50 cal was located in the Heavy Weapons Platoon of an infantry company, together, with two .30 cal MGs. This is confirmed here.

http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/1-11940.aspx#startofcomments

http://www.easy39th.com/inventory.php

A Glider Infantry Regiment had 3

http://www.327gir.com/Gear.html

How the U.S. infantry, glider and airborne forces moved weapons and ammunition (must see)--handcart also towable by motorcycle or jeep. Ample photographic proof provided of combat use.

http://www.theliberator.be/handcart.htm

Note both allocation of .50s and explicit mentions of handcarts here

http://orbat.com/site/us2002/files/6/USGliderInfantryinWorldWarII.pdf

According to this, the Ma Deuce typically fired ball and tracer (4 ball and 1 tracer in factory loaded ammo belts), with AP available. This link should prove valuable to the PTO crowd, too.

http://www.ww2gyrene.org/weapons_M2HB.htm

Regards,

John Kettler

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I _may_ have engaged in a bit of hyperbole when I stated the .50 can "shred halftracks from any range/angle". I thought my exaggeration was obvious, since there must be some range and angle at which the .50 stops being effective.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My wish for the CMFI family:

Mules!

Read about the campaign and you'll learn how vital they were to logistics. Vehicles had no hope of getting up those mountains.

Another cool thing, but for early war, would be bicycles. I could imagine a single vehicle unit that actually appears as 12 bikes. When dismounted the appear lying on their sidees. When mounted by a squad, the troops appear on them and are pedaling when they move...LOL, I can just imagine the endless animation and coding work something like this would take...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My wish for the CMFI family:

Mules!

Read about the campaign and you'll learn how vital they were to logistics. Vehicles had no hope of getting up those mountains.

Another cool thing, but for early war, would be bicycles. I could imagine a single vehicle unit that actually appears as 12 bikes. When dismounted the appear lying on their sidees. When mounted by a squad, the troops appear on them and are pedaling when they move...LOL, I can just imagine the endless animation and coding work something like this would take...

I like how you're thinking ... especially regarding the mules, but I don't know how's they fit into tactical combat. They were excellent for logistics, though! They're still used today, in fact.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's still .30 cals that are taking the half tracks apart though John. I will write no more on the subject or I may start to pull clumps of hair out!

OK; great. Now we we've specified that we're talking about the effect of .30-'06 fire on light armor such as halftracks. Here, there are some interesting discussions to be had.

One major question here is what kind of ammo the game models as being used by the various .30-'06 small arms and MGs. The in-game display simply describes the ammo as ".30 M2." Remember c3k's comment regarding confusions that can be caused by the U.S. Army "M" weapons designation system? Well, there were two basic rounds commonly used by .30-'06 weapons systems: M2 Ball ammo and M2 Armor Piercing ammo. You would think they would have given the two ammo types a different number designation to avoid confusion, but that's the Army for you.

M2 .30 ball has an armor penetration of something like 6-8mm RHA at point blank. M2 .30 AP has an armor penetration of something like 12-14mm RHA at point blank. So if we're going to discuss the expected effect of .30-06 fire on a light armored vehicle with 8-14.5mm of armor, it's obviously quite important to specify which of these two types of ammo is being used, and unfortunately the ".30 M2" in the GUI tells us nothing - this could indicate either M2 Ball or M2 AP, or even some mix of the two.

The historical usage of these two types of .30-'06 ammo is actually a topic of discussion amongst small-arms grogs. MG crews and BAR teams were definitely issued both ball and AP ammo, though the details of who got what, where and in what proportion are hard to quantify. Further, there is evidence that as the war progressed, the Army began to favor M2 .30 AP over M2 .30 Ball for general-purpose distribution, apparently because it was only marginally more expensive to produce, but gave much better penetration into hard cover, like buildings. There is even evidence to suggest that Garand riflemen were being issued M2 AP rather than M2 Ball by the last year of the war -- if you look on WWII militaria collector auction sites, you'll sometimes find up for auction ammo bandoleers, pre-filled at the factory with M2 .30 AP rounds already loaded into Garand en bloc clips. If M2 AP was being shipped out of the factory already loaded into en bloc clips, it's a pretty solid conjecture that at least some of the ammo ending up in the hands of private riflemen was M2 .30 AP.

So... what kind of ammo is ".30 M2" intended to model in the game? I have no idea. And unless BFC decides to comment specifically on this topic, we're probably never going to know. But there is certainly historical evidence to support the idea that the game should model MG and BAR teams as carrying least some M2 .30 AP ammo, which would be substantially more effective against light armor like halftracks than ball ammo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Follow up:

I needed something to do this morning requiring minimal thought while uptaking my required daily dose of coffee, so I started to run some casual tests on just how dangerous .30-06 fire is to German halftracks in the game.

Initial investigation:

- 7 U.S. infantrymen w/ Garands only (A U.S. Armored Infantry squad, minus the team carrying the rifle grenade). Regular, in command. positioned behind high bocage.

vs.

- One German SPW 251/1 Halftrack, w/ Driver, Gunner, and carrying one 9-man infantry squad. All Regular. Ordered to button up. Deployed frontal aspect to U.S infantry.

Perfectly flat terrain. The tall Bocage the U.S. infantry is positioned behind is the only cover.

Ran test twice, once at 200m, once at 100m, for a full 5 minutes at each range.

@ 200m: No penetrations, partial penetrations, or spalling events observed. Didn't count exact number of shots & hits, but I would estimate over 200 shots, and at least 100 hits. HT crew and passengers suppressed (passengers Pinned by end of run), but no casualties. Only damage to vehicle one step damage to the radio (Dark Green to Light Green square). HT Driver did manage to spot American riflemen intermittently, and when the American infantry is spotted, the HT MG gunner steps up and opens fire, despite orders to button up. MG gunner actually does manage to hit one American infantryman this way.

@ 100m: No penetrations, partial penetrations, or spalling events observed. U.S. infantry made less shots than at 200m, because HT is spotting American infantry more often and returning fire more (see below), but still over 100 shots and dozens of hits by American infantry. Just as at 200m, HT crew and passengers are suppressed by incoming fire. And again, when the HT driver spots the infantry to the front of the vehicle, the HT gunner will man the gun despite orders to stay down. Over the 5 minutes, the HT gunner manages to hit 3 out of the 7 American infantry. At very end of run, HT gunner is hit and wounded while he is up and manning the gun -- looks like he was hit by a ricochet from a "Weapon Mount" hit. Again, HT sustains minor (one step) of damage to radio, but no other damage.

Conclusion: I see no evidence that moderate, sustained .30-'06 rifle fire is a substantial danger to German Halftracks from the frontal aspect at ranges as close as 100m, so I am not going to run further tests on this specific matchup and conditions.

I know the initial complaints here were about .30 MGs killing halftracks, but I thought I'd start with Garands, to establish a baseline. Time allowing, I will run similar casual tests with BAR teams & .30 MGs under the same conditions next. Then I will test other aspects, such as flank and 45-degree aspect. Then we will have something more substantial than "Aaaugh! I'm losing all my haltracks to .30 MGs!" to base our discussion upon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can I veer the already off-topic thread just a little further and ask exactly what is M2-ball ?

Since it's rifle/Mg ammo, it obviously isn't actually a ball, so what is the difference to AP ( presumably a full-jacketed round ) ?

Thanks grogs

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can I veer the already off-topic thread just a little further and ask exactly what is M2-ball ?

Since it's rifle/Mg ammo, it obviously isn't actually a ball, so what is the difference to AP ( presumably a full-jacketed round ) ?

Thanks grogs

General-purpose standard service ammunition with a solid core bullet.

https://rdl.train.army.mil/catalog/view/100.ATSC/434948EB-8945-4C25-9389-B33B4927856C-1308726234899/3-22.9/glos.htm

And yes.... we've gone into uber-grog land with this thread..... :cool:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can I veer the already off-topic thread just a little further and ask exactly what is M2-ball ?

Since it's rifle/Mg ammo, it obviously isn't actually a ball, so what is the difference to AP ( presumably a full-jacketed round ) ?

Thanks grogs

The term "ball ammunition" originates from back in muzzle-loading days, when small arms ammo was literally a lead ball. Today (and in WWII), it basically just means "standard" ammo, usually a homogeneous lead or other soft-core metal bullet, with a FMJ outer shell. Generally speaking, ball ammo is not engineered with any special attributes that improve penetration into hard cover or armor.

Generally, the "Armor Piercing" or "AP" in regards to small arms ammo refers to a bullet has been designed to have hard cover/armor penetration advantages over standard "ball" ammo. Details vary with the specific round, but it may have a hardened steel tip, a steel core running the length of the bullet, etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...