Tank Gun Damage

[Bulletpoint]

On 7/7/2020 at 3:25 AM, Lucky_Strike said:

The PanzerWrecks series of books does feature a few images of damage to main weapons which appear to have occurred from frontal hits ie chunks taken out of muzzle brakes and glancing blows along barrels. Great source for all you damage nerds out there.

Thanks for digging up all those numbers. Does any of those books include any pictures of a barrel penetration coming from the front? I think that's the important part here.

[Lucky_Strike]

57 minutes ago, com-intern said:

Thanks for bringing stats up for us.


Over in the tank accuracy thread it appears that gun damage is pretty heavily tied to whether a vehicle is hull down or not. So depending on how you fight you might actually be seeing fewer or more gun damage results. I wonder if more casual players are intuiting that there is a difference but not understanding why. Because it appears that a Panther could reliably wipe the floor of a large number of Shermans if it were in the open while if it were hull down it would lose its gun.

Yes. Indeed, at distance, in the open, the Panther is always going to wipe the floor with the earlier marks of Sherman. In hull down their ability to withstand hits is severely reduced. Tigers though present a slightly nuanced problem in as much as their mantlets could withstand more punishment. That's not to say though that one should leave them sitting in a hull down position once targeted.

In Wolfgang Schneider's Tigers in Combat III there are some reproductions of interesting Soviet instruction manuals for tank and anti-tank gunners, issued soon after their first contact with the s.Pz.Abt in 1943. They highlight areas of Tigers to target: frontally - vision blocks, tracks, machine guns, optics and commander's cupolas; from the side - turret side, fuel tanks, between the tracks & upper hull, wheels, drive sprocket, commander's cupola, loader's hatch and gun barrel. All of which seems to tally quite nicely with the kinds of damage reports returned by the Werkstatt. In one of the same documents the gunners are exhorted to Bombard with all weapons, Use guns of every calibre, Throw incendiary devices and use All anti-tank weapons. 

In the 30 September 1943 report I mentioned above, by a commander in the s.Pz.Abt 506, the types of damage suffered by the Tigers does seem to support how the Soviet troops tackled the Tigers: 6 Tigers lost by direct hits from around 1000m, the tanks burnt out and exploded in enemy territory; 1 Tiger knocked out by a T-34 at 200m by two penetration to the hull side; 4 divers', 4 radio operators', 1 loaders' and 2 commanders' hatches blown off; 8 cannon and 4 gun gimbals damaged; 3 final drives broken by hits to hull armour; 3 instances of armoured cover and 6 of glass viewing blocks of driver's viewpoint shot-up; one armour protection to exhaust destroyed; 15 hatch-cover latches destroyed; running gear of 21 tanks badly damaged by projectiles, including 6 drive sprockets and 2 guide wheels; 6 radiators damaged by splinters from hits on the turret; 14 engines rendered inoperative caused by enemy fire; 3 air intakes and 2 ventilator fans destroyed; etc

Not to mention some very deaf crews thanks to the hammering on their hulls!

[Lucky_Strike]

32 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Thanks for digging up all those numbers. Does any of those books include any pictures of a barrel penetration coming from the front? I think that's the important part here.

No problem, very interesting threads. Yes, here's a few examples from Schneider's Tigers in Combat III which I have at hand. One taking off the muzzle brake, a penetration along the length, and a glancing blow into the the shroud. The last is the result of firing a damaged gun! Yikes! I guess the take away is that the game can't really depict what the damage actually might look like. 

Do not attempt this at home kids!

 

Edited July 9, 2020 by Lucky_Strike

[Bulletpoint]

5 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

No problem, very interesting threads. Yes, here's a few examples from Schneider's Tigers in Combat III which I have at hand. One taking off the muzzle brake, a penetration along the length, and a glancing blow into the the shroud. The last is the result of firing a damaged gun! Yikes! I guess the take away is that the game can't really depict what the damage actually might look like. 

 

 

Thanks a lot. Finally a pic of a barrel penetration that came from the front arc. So it can actually happen. Not sure exactly what angle it came in at, but it's clear it wasn't from a 90 degree side shot. What shell size would you say made this hole?

Edited July 9, 2020 by Bulletpoint

[Lucky_Strike]

15 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

Thanks a lot. Finally a pic of a barrel penetration that came from the front arc. So it can actually happen. Not sure exactly what angle it came in at, but it's clear it wasn't from a 90 degree side shot. What shell size would you say made this hole?

Nothing mentioned in the caption, it's definitely come from an angle to the front, not head on, my guess is a 45mm, perhaps a 76mm, I think anything bigger would have decimated the barrel from that angle. I know there's a shot in a PanzerWrecks title that shows a real front on hit to a muzzle brake by what looks to be an anti-tank rifle, would have surely disabled the gun and sent the Tiger back to the Werkstatt!

[Vacillator]

At the risk of being shot down in flames, my non-scientific experience from the last three battles I've played.

1.  Gog and Magog in RT - several King Tigers and several Panthers ended up with 'Main Gun Damage' and could not fire any more.  There are lots of tanks on both sides in this battle, so perhaps not so unusual, however I did not notice any T34/85s or IS2s (or Pz IVs for that matter) ending up with non-functioning guns, only full destruction or bail-outs.

2.  Ambush at De Hoop in BN - this time I benefited, putting the main gun on a Tiger 1 out of action with a PIAT.

3.  A Quick Battle of my own also in BN, in which a Jagdpanther ended up at one of a road concealed partially in trees and an AI chosen Sexton (88mm SPA) in the open at the other.  Jagdpanther fired twice, missing both times.  Sexton then fired and knocked out the main gun on the Jagdpanther.

In 1 and 3 I was playing as cautiously as the circumstances allowed, not sticking my neck out asking for a slug-fest.  So my overall feeling is that either I'm unlucky with large German tanks or they *may* be more susceptible to gun damage for whatever reason.  But yes, it's just a feeling and it's not going to stop me playing.

Let the AA fire begin .

[com-intern]

1 hour ago, Vacilllator said:

In 1 and 3 I was playing as cautiously as the circumstances allowed, not sticking my neck out asking for a slug-fest.  So my overall feeling is that either I'm unlucky with large German tanks or they *may* be more susceptible to gun damage for whatever reason.  But yes, it's just a feeling and it's not going to stop me playing.

If you go over to the tank targeting accuracy thread you can see clearly that being in a hull down position will have a significant increase in the chance for gun damage results. With heavy armor that is likely proof to enemy return fire I would recommend fighting from the open rather than hull ground.
 

On 7/8/2020 at 3:18 PM, RobZ said:

Test results

Tests done in a more "natural" map instead of flat ground. Shermans are at 900,1030 and 1050m. All shermans are placed in light forest with trees. Shermans are of variant M4A3(76)W. Panther is of variant Panther G mid.

20 tests done with panther hull down, 20 tests with panther open ground. At test start the panther will drive to its correct position so it is not exposed at the start, all shermans stationary. Disregard the forward observers, they are behind terrain and does not see anything. At this range and angle the shermans can penetrate the lower glacis and the front turret, only the upper hull plate is immune.

Skill: regular, normal, 0 for all tanks

The map.

Panther hull down/open from sherman's perspective (one of them).

Panthers perspective.

 

Results:

Panther in hull down position:

4/20 times success; 20% win rate

failures:

12 times by main gun destroyed: 4 times muzzle hit, 2 times barrel hit, rest are mantlet/weapon mount hits. Rest of failures is crew dismount and tank destroyed.

Panther on open ground:

11/20 times success; 55% win rate

1 success had the panther immobilized by lower glacis penetration, engine destroyed

failures:

4 times by main gun destroyed: 1 time muzzle hit, rest mantlet/weapon mount.

1 time destroyed after +50 hits, crew panicked earlier, but the tank was still operational

rest is lower glacis or weapon mount tank destroyed

 

So after all that i did another 10 tests in each position with shermans all beeing elite crew to see what happend

Panther in hull down position vs 3 elite shermans: 0% win rate

Panther on open ground vs 3 elite shermans: 40% win rate

 

I got many pictures from the different successes and failures, but i dont want to clutter the post, but in general this is why the panther wins open ground scenarios:

The AI will always aim for the upper hull plate, which is the only place they can't penetrate. This is the aiming issue im talking about, the AI aims for the exact same location every single shot and will never deviate at all unless terrain forces them to. Once they are zeroed in, there is almost no hits to the turret or lower glacis at all, these lower glacis hits was two of the first shots fired. The panther won in the scenario that picture is taken from.

[Vacillator]

8 minutes ago, com-intern said:

If you go over to the tank targeting accuracy thread you can see clearly that being in a hull down position will have a significant increase in the chance for gun damage results. With heavy armor that is likely proof to enemy return fire I would recommend fighting from the open rather than hull ground.

Yes I have been reading that thread as well.  I wasn't deliberately hull down (as in having placed a hull down order or specifically maneuvered to achieve hull down) in any of these scenarios, but I would guess that they were hull down to some degree except for the PIAT hit on the Tiger 1 which was pretty much 'in my face'.

[Vacillator]

I can now add another, Barkmann's Corner revisited.  Excellent scenario.

Barkmann's Panther made it through some intense action, but near the end his radio and tracks were destroyed.  And yes you've guessed it, also his main gun.  Managed to keep him and the Panther alive as a sitting duck with some excellent infantry hollow charge work in support, but another example of main gun going off-line.

Between Barkmann and the infantry the final tally on the enemy was 24 tanks and 5 other vehicles destroyed, but my brave infantry paid a heavy price.

[Vacillator]

Last example before I bore everyone to death (or at least someone tells me it's boring). 

Sudden Fury, with 3 Jagdpanthers.  Early on, one hit from a 'normal' Cromwell (I think) and one of the main guns is toast.  I'm not saying it shouldn't happen, just that it happens perhaps too often. Also, following on from the above comments, I assume the hull down damage issue is less of a factor for Jagdpanthers, which are the subject of 2 out of the 5 examples.  

And I promise no more posts on my misfortunes

Edited July 15, 2020 by Vacilllator