Tiger and Panther turret hit location data

[Vanir Ausf B]

Test 1

Cromwell VII firing at Panther D Full hull down (2 meter berm) range 500m

577 hits

* 281 -- 49% -- Weapon Mount (mantlet)

278 no damage

3 partial penetrations

* 189 -- 33% -- Front Turret

156 no damage

31 spalling

2 partial penetrations

2 penetrations

* 107 -- 18.5% -- Weapon (gun hit/disabled)

Comments: 1/3 of hit striking the front turret armor seems excessive given how much of the front turret area is covered by the mantlet (see pics below).

Test 2

Cromwell VII firing at Panther D partial hull down (1 meter berm) range 100m

654 hits

* 469 -- 72% -- Weapon Mount (mantlet)

413 no damage

52 partial penetrations

4 penetrations

* 123 -- 19% -- Front Turret

55 no damage

49 spalls

19 partial penetrations

* 60 -- 9% -- Weapon (gun hit/disabled)

* 1 Forward top hull

no damage

* 1 Ricochet Forward Top Hull

penetration

Comments: Hit distribution seems more in line with expectations. I don't know why there is such a significant difference with Test 1. This was the only test where I witnessed the infamous Panther shot trap do something, albeit only once.

Test 3

Cromwell VII firing at Panther D partial hull down (1 meter berm) range 500m

566 hits

* 379 -- 67% -- Weapon Mount (mantlet)

374 no damage

3 partial penetrations

2 penetrations

* 119 -- 21% -- Weapon (gun hit/disabled)

* 68 -- 12% -- Front Turret

56 no damage

8 spallings

3 partial penetration

1 penetration

Comments: Moving from 100m to 500m about doubles the likelyhood of a the main gun getting hit. No idea why. On the positive side the proportion of front turret armor hits looks about right.

Test 4

Cromwell VII firing at Tiger I Late full hull down (2 meter berm) range 500m

553 hits

* 297 -- 54% -- Weapon Mount (mantlet)

297 no damage

* 195 -- 35% -- Front Turret

151 no damage

38 spalls

5 partial penetrations

1 penetration

* 43 -- 7% -- Weapon Mount (gun hit/disabled)

* 14 -- 2% -- Right Front Turret (rounded side visible)

14 no damage

* 4 -- 1% -- Left Front Turret (rounded side visible)

4 no damage

Comments: Very similar distribution to the Panther under identical test conditions. And that is a problem, because while 1/3 of turret hits striking the Panther front turret armor not covered by the mantlet is excessive it is completely crazy for the Tiger because the Tiger's mantlet covers virtually the entire front turret area. The actual number of hits on the Tiger's front turret armor that do not first penetrate the mantlet should be 0 or very close to 0.

Test 5

Cromwell VII firing at Tiger I Late full hull down on reverse slope (2 meter berm with Tiger on reverse slope, as opposed to further back from the berm on level ground in other tests) range 500m

648 hits

* 364 -- 56% -- Weapon Mount (mantlet)

362 no damage

1 partial penetration

1 penetration

* 255 -- 39% -- Weapon (gun hit/disabled)

* 27 -- 4% -- Front Turret

22 no damage

5 spalls

* 2 Right Front Turret (rounded side visible)

2 no damage

Comments: Placing the tank angled vertically increases the exposed area of the gun barrel and decreases the exposed area of the rest of the turret relative to the shooter so the direction of migration in hit location makes sense, although 39% of hits disabling the main gun does seem a bit excessive even in this situation (but I admittedly can't prove that )

The 2 penetrating hits through the mantlet suggests some type of weak point modeling.

Test 6

Cromwell VII firing at Tiger I Late partial hull down (1 meter berm) range 500m

586 hits

* 379 -- 65% -- Weapon Mount (mantlet)

379 no damage

* 140 -- 24% -- Weapon (gun hit/disabled)

* 65 -- 11% -- Front Turret

50 no damage

14 spallings

1 partial penetration

* 1 Top Turret

no damage

* 1 Ricochet Into Opening

1 penetration

Comments: Distribution is nearly identical to Panther under identical conditions. That's a problem because once again even 11% of hits striking the front turret armor is 11% too many.

Test 7

Cromwell VII firing at Tiger I Mid partial hull down (1 meter berm) range 500m.

530 hits

* 356 -- 67% -- Weapon Mount

353 no damage

3 partial penetrations

* 105 -- 20% -- Weapon (gun hit/disabled)

* 67 -- 12.6% -- Front Turret

53 no damage

14 spallings

* 1 Left Front Turret (rounded side visible)

no damage

* 1 Right Front Turret (rounded side visible)

no damage

Comments: Same as the last test except with a Tiger Mid. No surprises.

Test 8

50mm AT gun firing at Cromwell VII partial hull down (1 meter berm) range 500m.

451 hits

* 287 -- 63.5% -- Front Turret

* 103 -- 23% -- Weapon Mount (mantlet)

* 61 -- 13.5% -- Weapon (gun hit/knocked out)

Comment: The Cromwell gets its comeuppance. I did not keep track of penetrations on this test (there were a lot which is why the sample size is a little smaller). Given that hit distribution on the Tiger and Panther was nearly identical to each other on this test I wanted to compare a tank with a much different turret layout. No real surprises although it is interesting that the gun was hit somewhat less often than the Panther and Tiger.

Conclusions:

I know the frequency of gun hits has been mentioned many times on the forum but I will let others debate that if they wish as I have no strong opinion on it other than I think perhaps gun hits should not result in a disabled main gun every time.

What I do have a problem with is the seeming mismatch between the physical model of the Tiger and the underlying hit location. If you look at the Tiger in-game you will see that the mantlet does cover nearly the entire front turret as it should. But depending on various factors 12-39% of hits on the front turret are magically bypassing the mantlet to strike the thinner front turret armor behind it (the front turret armor is 100mm while the mantlet varies greatly but averages around 120-130mm). This makes a significant difference in Tiger survivability and it would be nice to see it fixed in the next patch*

* unless someone can explain why this is actually correct, which someone probably will try to do because that's the way it works around here

[Vanir Ausf B]

[c3k]

Great work!

Test 4: should that be a 2 meter berm?

Do you have screenshots of some of the test runs? Or, better, a savegame or setup you'd like to share? Private Mail me through the PM link up top.

Thanks,

Ken

[Vanir Ausf B]

Good catch on test 4. Edited.

No screen shots (but I could make some). However I do have all the save game files if you want them. I could bundle them up and post them if you like, but it's late so it will have to be sometime tomorrow.

[c3k]

Just one savegame, to check the setup you used. Anytime is fine.

(My personal opinion is that any change, if any, prompted by this data will not be used until/unless CMBNx2 comes along.)

[Tarquelne]

That's a problem because once again even 11% of hits striking the front turret armor is 11% too many.

A possibility: Rather than labeling the whole front of the Tiger turret "mantlet" for the hit location text, that label is used only for the raised area around the gun. (Or the central third of the front of the turret?) The rest of the matlet might still be being treated as mantlet for penetration purposes, but labeled "front turret" in the text.

The number of penetrations taken through the front was the same as the mantlet in your tests if I sucesfully counted on my fingers. Which implies the same protection for both the mantlet and the front turret. But a lot more spalling on the "front" hits: The relatively thin part of the mantlet between the raised center and the end bars?

(OTOH, how much damage should we see through the mantlet? Should it be considered as ~220mm of armor?)

[Amizaur]

Very interesting tests . I did some very similar testing and had exactly the same results and conclusions about percentage of gun hits, mantlet and front turret hits and how they change when the range is changed. A tip - try to set your target tanks at 10deg side offset, with barrels pointing at least 10deg to the side. You will get no gun hits at all .

I believe that the percentage of gun/mantlet/turret hits changes, because the center of the shell spread pattern is moving (if the aiming point is different), or the spread pattern is getting wider or smaller (as the range increases or decreases) so there is a different "density" of hits on various parts of the tank. Sometimes there is a lot of shells flying trough the "gun" hitbox (target tank in full hull down, medium to close range, aiming at the shooter, so the gun of the target tank is in the center of a narrow shell hit pattern), sometimes the interesting area is on the edge of the spread pattern, or the pattern has low density, sometimes there are wirtually no shells hitting this area. Same for other areas, like front turret. In every case, we will get differen hit probabilities. Maybe a test from 2-3km would give us more or less uniform density at whole area of the tank front, so we would get "true" results for area ratio of various parts. But it would take thousands of shots to get any statistical results.

Edit: my test map and target/shooter setup looked almost identical like yours - from the screenshot below .

[Vanir Ausf B]

Save game file.

http://www.2shared.com/file/6F6m0i0m/gunnery2000_cromwell_500_Tiger.html

[Vanir Ausf B]

A possibility: Rather than labeling the whole front of the Tiger turret "mantlet" for the hit location text, that label is used only for the raised area around the gun. (Or the central third of the front of the turret?) The rest of the matlet might still be being treated as mantlet for penetration purposes, but labeled "front turret" in the text.

The number of penetrations taken through the front was the same as the mantlet in your tests if I sucesfully counted on my fingers. Which implies the same protection for both the mantlet and the front turret. But a lot more spalling on the "front" hits: The relatively thin part of the mantlet between the raised center and the end bars?

(OTOH, how much damage should we see through the mantlet? Should it be considered as ~220mm of armor?)

There were far more total hits on the mantlet than on the front turret, so the total number of penetrations may have been the same ( I did not add them up) but as a percentage penetrations of the front turret were far more likely than on the mantlet. If you add in the instances of armor spalling it's orders of magnitude difference. So no, I don't think this is a possible explanation.

According to Rexford's book the Tiger mantlet should resist equal to about 130mm RHA by itself, on average. Of course the thinner edges of the mantlet have the 100mm think front turret armor behind it.

[Hister]

That you bro for doing this test - hope BFC responds and fixes!

[Vanir Ausf B]

(My personal opinion is that any change, if any, prompted by this data will not be used until/unless CMBNx2 comes along.)

Well, CMBN 2.0 is come and gone. On the off-chance that this was fixed at some point without mention in the patch notes, a-la the QB 5% loading crash bug, I decided to make a new test on 2.01 and compare.

This test is virtually identical to Test 7 in my 1.10 run, except that I inadvertently used Cromwell IV instead of VII. Same gun.

Test 9

Cromwell IV firing at Tiger I mid, partial hull-down (behind 1 meter berm). Range 500m.

573 total hits on turret recorded

* 376 hits -- 65.6% -- weapon mount (mantlet)

374 no damage

1 partial penetration

1 full penetration

* 130 hits -- 22.7% -- weapon

* 67 hits -- 11.7% -- front turret

55 no damage

10 armor spalling

1 partial penetration

1 full penetration

These results are nearly identical to the earlier tests under the same circumstances, so nothing has changed. We are still getting ~12% of hits on the front turret from straight ahead striking the front turret armor instead of the mantel that is in front of the turret armor.

If you want a save game PM me your email.

[c3k]

VAB,

Check your PM.

Ken

[$Pec5]

Great tests

This brings some very interesting information to light. It's a shame v2.01 just got released. If any adjustments to the hit distribution on the Panther and Tiger come about it likely wont be for a while, I assume.

[akd]

Do you ever see the "front turret" hits ricochet?

[Steiner14]

Brilliant work. Hopefully this will get fixed ASAP.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Do you ever see the "front turret" hits ricochet?

Most of them did not penetrate, but I did not pay attention to whether they were ricocheting or exploding. If it is important I can run it again to look.

Ken: I'll shoot you an email later when I'm off work.

[akd]

There are two major problems here:

1. You seem to assume that shots are distributed evenly over the exposed surface of the turret front, and so the percentage of hits to any particular part should correspond to the total percentage exposure. This is not the case.

2. You seem to assume that the Tiger mantlet covers 100% of the turret front. As far as I can tell looking at diagrams, it does not.

There is also another potentially complicating issue, although I don't think it particularly likely: it is possible that hits that penetrate the mantlet in an area where it overlaps with front turret armor report as front turret hits. If that is the case, I would expect hits of this type to not ricochet, but same might be true for hits beneath the edge of the mantlet.

[Amizaur]

There were no "side turret" hits ? Tiger turret is round, and the turret side is visible from front aspect...

Maybe the somewhat high number of "turret front" hits comes from side turret hits being counted as front turret hits ?

Second thought: so we have 22% of hits landing on a Tiger's turret disabling it's main gun ?

(22.7% -- weapon)

Isn't it a bit high number, considering the relative area of the muzzle brake (that is "collecting" almost all weapon hits) compared to the area of the whole turret ?

[YankeeDog]

Second thought: so we have 22% of hits landing on a Tiger's turret disabling it's main gun ?

(22.7% -- weapon)

Isn't it a bit high number, considering the relative area of the muzzle brake (that is "collecting" almost all weapon hits) compared to the area of the whole turret ?

I can't really comment as to whether 22% of turret hits disabling the main gun is high or not. Seems high to me, but I don't know of any good real world data to compare to. However, it does seem you are making the assumption that main gun damage would always be due to hits on the exposed part of gun itself, and this is definitely not true.

There are many ways a hit could disable the main gun, beyond actually hitting the exposed, external part of the gun. For example, non-penetrating hits on or near the turret ring can freeze the turret rotation mechanism, making anything beyond coarse aiming (via turning the chassis) impossible. Similarly, partially penetrating hits to the mantlet can sometimes "keyhole" the mantlet, making it impossible to change the elevation of the main gun.

CM doesn't explicitly tell us exactly what type of failure has lead to main gun malfunction so we have to assume that at least some proportion are due to damage other than damage to the gun barrel itself.

[Vanir Ausf B]

There are two major problems here:

1. You seem to assume that shots are distributed evenly over the exposed surface of the turret front, and so the percentage of hits to any particular part should correspond to the total percentage exposure. This is not the case.

2. You seem to assume that the Tiger mantlet covers 100% of the turret front. As far as I can tell looking at diagrams, it does not.

There are essentially two areas of the front turret armor exposed: A strip along the top edge and the turret ring. The top edge is backed by the turret top armor where it joins the front, so anything striking there would be very unlikely to penetrate into the interior of the turret unless it was plunging downward at a steep angle.

The turret ring could be penetrated if struck. There are several factors at work here. One is that, as you point out, it is located closer to the center of mass. Working against that is the fact that it is recessed behind the mantlet, and there is a flange on the top of the driver plate that partially screens the turret ring.

(ignore the scribbles; I did not make them)

There is also another potentially complicating issue, although I don't think it particularly likely: it is possible that hits that penetrate the mantlet in an area where it overlaps with front turret armor report as front turret hits. If that is the case, I would expect hits of this type to not ricochet, but same might be true for hits beneath the edge of the mantlet.

The UK 75mm round would not be able to penetrate even the thinnest section of mantlet (90mm) and then be able to go through a second 100mm plate.

[akd]

There are essentially two areas of the front turret armor exposed: A strip along the top edge and the turret ring. The top edge is backed by the turret top armor where it joins the front, so anything striking there would be very unlikely to penetrate into the interior of the turret unless it was plunging downward at a steep angle.

The turret ring could be penetrated if struck. There are several factors at work here. One is that, as you point out, it is located closer to the center of mass. Working against that is the fact that it is recessed behind the mantlet, and there is a flange on the top of the driver plate that partially screens the turret ring.

(ignore the scribbles; I did not make them)

The UK 75mm round would not be able to penetrate even the thinnest section of mantlet (90mm) and then be able to go through a second 100mm plate.

so, maybe some of the front turret "hits" are penetrations through the mantlet edge, while the single front turret "penetration" is a lucky hit to the armor above the turret ring but below the mantlet. We are talking about one single "front turret" penetration out of 573 hits here.

[Vanir Ausf B]

There were no "side turret" hits ? Tiger turret is round, and the turret side is visible from front aspect...

Maybe the somewhat high number of "turret front" hits comes from side turret hits being counted as front turret hits ?

There were no side turret hits in my latest test, but I did get a small number of them in previous tests. We know that they are not being counted as front turret hits because they have unique hit text: "right front turret" and "left front turret". I confirmed that these are in fact the forward sloping sections of the side armor by test firing at a Tiger from the side (90°) and seeing the same areas hit.

The question really is why are they hit so rarely? The same question should be asked of the forward sloping top turret armor. Combined, these have a surface area much larger than the thin strips of exposed front turret armor. I understand CM uses center of mass aiming, but I went back and added up the total number of Tiger turret hits in all my tests in this thread. Out of 2890 (!) total hits only 22 hit the exposed side turret sections. That is less than 0.8%. There was only 1 hit on the turret top armor (0.03%). If this can be explained away by center of mass aiming then common sense would suggest that the aiming towards center of mass modeling may be a little excessive.

[Vanir Ausf B]

so, maybe some of the front turret "hits" are penetrations through the mantlet edge, while the single front turret "penetration" is a lucky hit to the armor above the turret ring but below the mantlet. We are talking about one single "front turret" penetration out of 573 hits here.

1 full penetration, 1 partial and 10 spalling out of 67. The spalling suggests that these are hits close to penetrating. Penetration of UK 75mm solid shot at 500m against RHA @ 0° is 105mm for AP and 92.3 for APCBC . The minimum amount of armor a shot going through the mantlet would have to defeat is therefor 190mm, although that does not take into account that the turret armor is sloped at about 10° and the mantlet is cast rather than RHA.

One other tidbit that I haven't touched upon is how hit distribution changes dramatically depending on full hull down or partial hull down status.

Partial hull down (3 tests, 1689 hits)

Mantlet: ____ 65.6% (1108)

Weapon/Gun: 22.2% (375)

Front Turret: 11.8% (199)

Full hull down (1 test, 553 hits)

Mantlet: ___ 54% (297)

Weapon/gun: 7% (43)

Front Turret: 35% (195)

So going full hull down pushes hit distribution away from the mantlet and gun towards the front turret. Why? This is not a phenomenon unique to the Tiger. The same change was also seen in my testing of the Panther D:

Panther D partial hull down (654 hits)

Mantlet: ___ 72% (469)

Weapon/gun: 9% (60)

Front turret: 19% (123)

Full hull down (577 hits)

Mantlet: ___ 49% (281)

Weapon/gun: 18.5% (107)

Front turret: 33% (189)

Note that the Panther partial hull down test was done at 100m rather than the 500m at which all the other tests were run. However, the fact that we see the same distribution change with the Tiger tests all at 500m suggests range is not the cause.

[c3k]

VAB,

Minor point: the mantlet is in front of mostly machinery spaces, not frontal turret armor. This does not detract from your observations about hit location.

The turret frontal armor is 100mm, as shown in the drawing you posted. However, that is mostly an empty rectangle. Most of the interior of the turret frontal armor has been cut out, forming a hollow rectangle, from outside the machinegun port to beyond the outer gunsight. Only a little was retained along the top and bottom. The turret frontal armor was more of a frame, than a shield.

If you've seen pictures of early PzIII's with the internal mantlet, you'll see what I mean. The turret frontal armor of the PzIII is exposed. The Tiger's frontal armor had a similar shape, merely behind a large mantlet. So, to penetrate, a round "merely" has to pierce the mantlet and then, as long as it isn't near an edge, some other, lesser, pieces, such as trunnions, sights, mg's, recuperator, etc., but not another 100mm of armored steel.

(Edge effects, weakening the resistance of the mantlet, are backed up by the 100mm turret frontal armor. An elegant design solution, minimizing material for maximum protection and eliminating the problem of jammed mantlets.)

Ken

[Vanir Ausf B]

You are correct and that is a good point. I think it very doubtful that the "front turret" hits represent hits that have penetrated the mantlet in areas not backed by armor, since there would be then no reason for them to be labeled front armor hits in that case. Hits that actually do penetrate the more central area of the mantlet I believe are label "weapon mount". They are very rare, but do happen. So my earlier points were in reference to the thinner areas of the mantlet around the edges (100mm thick along the top and bottom and 90mm thick along the sides) that are backed by armor. I should have stated that. The areas of the mantlet not backed by armor vary from 135mm to 150mm thick.

I agree that it is an elegant design that maximizes protection while saving weight. The only thing they could have done better was make it sloped