Dan Robertson

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Swift: Last night i watched an old episode of “The man from U.N.C.L.E” where the bad guys had something that looked very much like the IR scopes from the poster. Did the Americans (or just Hollywood) steal the technology from the Germans?<hr></blockquote> Infra red was known technology to all major particpants of WWII, it just wasn't used due to the fact that is cost a great deal of money and was easy to counter. Once everybody has IR detectors it becomes as tactically sensible as fighting with searchlights.

The daisy cutter is related too but not actually a FAE. Fuel Air Explosives spead into a cloud and the detonate. The daisy cutter is an "air augmented blast bomb" the amonium nitrate based explosive bursts the bomb which has more combustible material that it has oxidizer. As the alumium powder is spread by the blast it combusts with the local air. This increases the radius of the blast by having the combustion distributed over a wider area. It also increases the efficency of the device because it uses the surrounding air as part of the blast. The next most powerfull blast weapon would be a the WWII cookies, they were thin walled blast bombs used in WWII. They airburst to create a lateral blast to destroy buildings. They came is sizes 4000, 8000 and 12000lbs. The Tallboy and Granslams were special bombs created to destroy ultra hard targets. A grandslam was once used to destroy a rail tunnel which it did after going through 100ft of earth. The Grandslam while having a strong case could because of its size have quite a high explosive content, its was 40% explosive which works out as 8800lbs of explosive. BTW 22tons per squane inch is only about 340MPa or about standard strength structural steel. Hardened steels can go up to 1800MPa. The blast value of the daisy cutter would be: assuming 12000lbs of explosive which is 2 times the power of TNT. A 14 inch shell has 300lbs of explosive in it and has a blast of 2348. So the blast of a daisy cutter would be (12000*2)/300 * 2348 = 187840 or 950 VT 155 rounds.

There is one problem with the Tiger II which stems from the modeling system in general. The problem is that the system assumes that a turret is a essentially a rectange with front sides and rear. The Tiger II's turret is however a flattened hexagon. So about 1/3 of the turret front is actually the side armour at a massive angle, of about 70degrees. This makes this portion of the frontal protection impervious to any weapon until APFSDS rounds started to appear. Even 120mm APDS can't penetrate it. However this means that at an off angle of only 15-20 degrees this portion of the turret becomes vulnerable since it is already angled towards the frontal aspect. The vulnerablity diagrams produced by BTS however have the protection increasing at slight off angles since as they currently model it this would result in benefical angles being generated on both front and side armour.

I think mortars do actually seem a bit too vulnerable to enemy fire in CM. They seem to be modeled as dug in rifle teams. From what I have seen of mortors on WWII news reels and in the TA a dug in mortar should be very hard to destroy. Since a mortor is a high angle firer a mortar hole would have no verticl profile. So direct fire weapons would have a very small target indeed. Tank guns would not be much use since they have too flatter tragetory. Infantry small arms would also not work well, however at short range the infantry could gernade them out of their position quite easily. The best anti motar weapons would be other mortars and artilery or low velocity guns. Basically anything with a high angle to get into the fox hole.

There is a reason why the Germans didn't produce large amounts of IR sights. They knew that it would cost a great deal of money and would very soon be tactically countered. Their intelegence also believed that the British Army was equipt with IR googles on which anyone with an IR search light would stand out like a sore thumb. They were partially correct, the British had experiance with IR equiptment but it was not in full scale service. IR googles were used in ampibious landings to guide boats in the dark. These were used in the crossing of the Rhine. The Americans were not in anyway behind in the developement of this technology, they too simply didn't use it. They did however test a heat seeking bomb by the end of the war. However without any signal processing it was only able to home in on things like steel works. It was the 1960's before anyone could actually build a homing air to ground munition.

Will the Germans be using their APCR rounds in CMBB? While I have never heard of them being used in Europe. Possibly because the Sherman didn't warrent them. I have heard of them being used on the eastern front. Particualry against heavier Russian tanks.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC: The 76mm had 57 rounds and there were improved AT types for it. It combined most of the good points of the Chaffee and the Hellcat without the main weaknesses of either. But the gun was good enough that they could fight T-34/85s, and in Nam (where they were used by ARVN) they did fine even against T-55s, using APDS ammo. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Just to add, the 76mm gun on the M41 was a very much longer and improved gun compared to the 76mm on the M4. It was 62 calibers in length and was probably more powerful than the German long 75. Possibly the best description of the M41 online http://www.kithobbyist.com/AFVInteriors/m41/m41a.html

One factor which is not brought into gunnery equations is situation and phsycology. Imagine two situations. 1. 88mm Flak gun verses Sherman range 500m, the tank has been visable for 3 minutes now is firing at an infantry trench to the right of you. Your gun is seen by the tank and you have had plenty of time to assertain the range. 2. You cresh a small hill in your Tiger and 500 meters away is a Firefly Sherman pointing it gun directly at you. You have seen the tank for all of 2 seconds, the tank is still rocking on its suspension. You can only guess the range. At the moment as far as I know the gunnery equations simply take into account target exposure, range weapon and an experiance modifier. In later CM I would like every tank to be given a "personallity" at random. You may have a new crew man with exelent eye sight and training, who can accurate estimate range and aim with a steady hand, in occasions where the unit is not under fire he shoots execptionally accuratly. Where under fire he comes to pieces and rarely hits the target. One the other hand you may have an experianced shooter who is not technically brilliant but performs in a similar manner whether under fire or not. At the moment the random aspect of gunnery is a bit odd, the same gunner is randomly good or bad.

There was also one verified single shot frontal penetration of the KingTigers glacis. After a battle in which a king tiger had been abandanoned an American soldier tested a PanzerFaust on it from a distance of 30m. The result a neat penetration of the frontal armour. The glacis of the Tiger II should really be invulnerable to any AP shell until 1966 when 120mm APDS came out. HEAT and HESH are another thing altogether.

Current UK battle drill is as so. Effective enemy fire. Rounds pass between foot to head height or casualties taken. Section comanders descision. (take cover) Infantry men will fire a short burst in the general direction of enemy. Run to cover. Drop before cover. Crawl into cover Return fire Then depending on the strength of the enemy drill is to either go forward and over run them or retreat and attack with greater forces. The Drill for supporting fire is to move when your support is firing. Usually you will shout go before starting the covering fire, but this is not possible if advancing in sections. Soldier 1: Puts enemy under effective fire (prepare to move) Soldier 1: (move!)) Soldier 2: Retreats from cover Soldier 2: Moves until next cover Soldier 2: Drops before cover Soldier 2: Crawls in to firing position. Soldier 1: Prepares to move The reason that the rounds are fired when the enemy makes contact is to give the impression that they have contacted a larger formation than they expected. Obviously with a bolt action rifle this would be ineffective, but with an auto matic rifle a section can sound very much louder if they all fire at the same time. If you are entering an aera you suspect the enemy may be in you will be patroling anyway, which is like the above but without the firing, and with longer bounds. A sensible comander will set up the patrol so that it is hard to tell how many men are in the patrol, this is done by a varying the number of people moving at one time. The reason you drop before your firing position to to make it harder for the enemy to pinpoint your position. If you drop and raise in the same place you will be an easy target. The battle drill are fundementally as flexible as the men using them, if you are approaching a wall for example you wonldn't need to drop a distance infont of it. Ditto if you are crossing a street (but we have a drill for that also)

Actually I'm of the opinion that there could be a place for a FOW on terrian. In real combat you don't get to see terrian before you get there. It could be an advantage for the defender they mat see the layout of all terrian but the attacker would not be able to see the layout of terrian in areas that no unit has ever had los to.

What I think should be the case with MG teams is they should have the abilty to short range sprint. It is possible to run with a heavy load (even another person) for a short distance. I'm of the opinion that MG's should remain as slow as they are at an operational level but should be able to move quickly for very short periods of time. Maybe a dash of about 50 metres or so.

Rommel: What is Lightwave like to use? I've been using a rather bad CAD program (because its free) to produce my models. However it is rather lacking in intelegence as a program. You can't for example view you object in many ways, all view are towards the models center of mass. The camo is my design I've made better ones since. But I love to jack in pro-desktop and get somthing decent.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fairbairn-Sykes Trench Knife: What say you about claims that the Lanchester had a longer effective range than several other SMGs of the war (from an SMG web page)?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> It has a nice study stock and heavy weight. I would suspect that a combat shooter would find this easier to shoot with than a lump of iron with a metal stick rivetted to it, like the sten gun

I have been studing this for a little while. Bascially a guns power comes from two properties. The volume of the gun, and the efficency with which it uses this. There are two basic factors which infulence the efficency of a gun and that is the propllent burn characteristics and the pressure the gun can take. The ideal propellant would burn at a rate which stressed the gun to maxium pressure for all of the time for which the round was in the barrel. I have found that if you take the gun's "throw weight" (what mass of shot it can throw at a certain speed) and divide by the volume of the gun you get a constant which is similar for all guns. You can then group gun by their type. 0.32-0.33 (modern smooth bore guns) 0.29-0.32 (British late war to present high pressure rifled guns 17pdr-120mm) 0.27-0.24 (typical WWII AT guns German 88L70 has factor 0.268) 0.19-0.22 (early war or low pressure guns, like Flak 88) the units are abritary and mearly serve to compare guns with each other. If we look at two guns that have the same volume, one is short and fat one is long and thin. They fire with propellants which have the same characteristics and the gun barrels take similar pressure) They guns will both have the same throw weight. However their uses will be very different, the fat gun will require a large shell to fit the barrel. It will project this at a lower velocity. The long thin gun will fire a lighter shell at much higher velocity. The allied 75mm tank gun was an old weapon it had a low pressure and was also not very long. The 76mm was much longer and also with a higher pressure. The 17pdr was the same size as the 76mm but had a higher pressure and much better propellant. The German 75 L70 and 75 l48 have very similar factors. But the longer barrel of the L70 allows it to push for longer and thus fire at a higher velocity. To do this it requires a larger cartrige.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Paul Lakowski: I heard that on the Achtung Pz site it was reported that the design was started in 1941 but dropped because it was not seen to be needed and then subsequently forgotten about!!!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Just incase you've never been to Panzerfaust page. Panzerfaust Most of the info you want.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dalem: Please. Had Caen been in the U.S. sector it would have been cleared and invested in two days. The vet panzers there would have been lying in 20m diameter craters. -dale<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> What fire support did the US have on D-Day that the UK/Canadians didn't

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Triumvir: Incidentally, the 76mm on the Walker Bulldog is, if I'm not mistaken, the same as that on the 76mm Shermans, and there's a sabot round for it that has 1433m/s muzzle velocity! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You are msitaken, they are different weapons the Walker Bulldogs cannon is 63 calibers long. The sabot round was deffinatly a 1960's design. For most of it carear it used an APCR round (HVAP) which used the same core as the WWII HVAP.

Actually I can think of two reasons for this. Firstly railways themselves are flat and straight, however as you described in you post they have cuttings and embankments which are very steep and have numerous features which may bog down a tank. The level of detail in a CM map is not that great the tank may have fallen down a step on one side of the track and then jammed its nose in the step up on the other side. A step of 1m would possibly do the job. Failing that going down the track could present problems, for example if you put a (tank) track on one side of a (rail) track and attempt to turn. The steel track could act like a tyre iron and force the track slowly off the tank. Considering the shaped of a rail this is quite possible. Either way I would expect that a rail track would be classed my most armies as an obstical. Abit a one which would be quite easy to cross if you are carefull. However the problem with CM is that you can't tell where a railway is crossible. What I would suggest is that the Tank should be able to cross or not cross. Not cross and then get bogged [ 08-20-2001: Message edited by: Dan Robertson ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy: Hmm, is it possible that these were for towing 17pdrs only? Could Jeeps pull 17-pdr AT guns? Anyone know? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> While I am sure that the Jeep could physically move a 17pdr, it really would not be a good idea to use it to tow one. The Major reason being that the 17pdr weighs more than the Jeep. Also I don't think that a field gun is braked after all it realy would need to be since they are usually towed by much larger vehicles.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Username: Makes no sense. A hollow charge that doesnt penetrate would be the same as a HE round on the outside of the tank. We are taking about the effects of an AP round hiting the outside and boucing off ringing the side of the tank producing and unpleasant shock wave which harms the crew. Over pressure of HE (either a dedicated HE or from a HEAT round) is different while the shock wave may travel through the armour the over pressure of the local air may enter the vehicle via hatches. Most RPGs would penetrate nam armor and it would be devastating on the crew when it did. Yes an RPG 7 would have little dificulty penetrating any Vietnam era tank (bar perhapes the Chieftain from the front) however the cases of the crew changes being required every day were from impacts of a rocket grenade called B-40 some M48's managed to clock up to 15 hits from these weapons without penetration. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SGT_Gold: In Vietnam, the Marines had to change their tank crews as often as once per day due to the effects of non penetrating AT weapons. I think it was the battle for Hue, but I can't remember exactly at this point. I was quite suprized to hear about this, but now it all seems to make sence. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The tank crews in this case were suffering from the effects of over pressure due to none penetrating hits from rocket grenades.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Commissar: Another thing about the East Front's Unit Handbook, it states that the IS-2's cannon could hit with such force that it would shear the turret off enemy tanks. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Not really feasible for the impact to knock the turret out as such, remeber that the gun must be fired from a turret on the original tank. A turret will only become detacted if the round enters the turret ring area and forces the hull and turret appart. But no AT round has enough velocity to actually throw the turret of a resonably large tank very far at all. That is done by internal explosions of rounds in the tank cooking off

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kipanderson: It is also my impression that during 1943 the use of such armour gradually faded out. For example, only the first few hundred Panthers used some face-hardened plates. Is this impression correct? All the best, Kip.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You are definatly correct that only the Panther D which preceded the A and G models had a face hardened Glacis. The change from face hardend back to RHA was actually pretty serendipitus. Early in the war their face hardened armour defeated uncapped allied shells. Later in the war Allied APCBC was less effective against RHA than APBC would have been

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kburns24: Fieldmarshall is right. They have some of the best military marches out there. You can download a few from MadMatt's website. I found a WWII era recording of Der Koniggratzer on Napster before they put the clamps on file sharing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If it is an operatic work you should still be able to download as you can hardly pay Bethovan et al royalties