Dan Robertson

The main problem with flight sims at low level is that unlike in the real world you have no death perception in a computer game this makes it much harder to not run into the ground. In addition you have no motion sensing as you aren't in the plane so it is harder to know precisl what the plane is doing. This is a problem at low level.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MikeT: Mike, personally I wish that BTS would simply modify one exe file with Russian armor/troops for one side and US armor/troops on the other. Let us gamer-modders do the rest. We can and would quickly modify existing bmps and wav files and make our own battles. It shouldn't, technically speaking, be difficult since nearly all the hardware does existing in CM1 and CM2. MikeT<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You are forgetting that to ave a proper Korea you need the uber tank of the theatre to Centurian MK3 with its lovely 20pdr gun

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PzKpfw 1: I also noticed you had the Tiger II TF at 189mm in another post yet Jentz etc, puts it at 180mm. Regards, John Waters <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> He was talking about the original tiger II turret which was less well aroured on the front but the sides took up more of the frontal protection in this case.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Heidman: And according to US bomber pilots, they shot down the entire Luftwaffe about 6 times over. Jeff Heidman<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Which is not surprising since each plane had 13 machine guns, a bit harder to over kill in a tank. However the actual type of vehicle killed is another matter all together

Kip I think one of the advantages of the German sight was the stadometric ranging ability, and the fact that it was marked up to these very high ranges. Looking at sight pictures for the 17 pdr it had only a set of sighting bars for different ranges. Where as the Germans could dail in the range more accuratly. What made a great difference was the German muzzle break and smokeless powder enabled the German gunner to more accurately track their rounds. Where as guns like the 17pdr produced so much smoke the gunner couldn't track his round. I would suspect that this is true with tanks like the IS II. Also modern tanks have a longer range than 3200m, that would be a limit for moving targets. The major range problem kicks in at around 4500-5500 meters rangee when the laser dot is bigger than the enemy tank so you get overspill and multiply ranges.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Panzertruppen maddox: True, we won't see those graphics for some time to come. But, we will see them! Look at how much PC graphics have improved in the last 10 years (a very short period of time). Hmmmm, what did they look like in 1991? Crap, crap and double crap! [ 06-17-2001: Message edited by: Panzertruppen maddox ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually if you define PC graphixs as that of computer games you would be right, however CAD systems have had powerfull shading algorithms for many years. My Cad text book has a fully rendered drawing of a 35 tonne snow truck. The problem was computer speed, that image probably took hours to render. However games may render things much faster because they simply use polygons, and don't have to worry about all the other sides of the vaious primatives, because they don't need to be easily modified.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by aaronb: o, if you have an hour or so for each second of combat to render, great. Otherwise, we have to deal with a more cm-like model.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> To produce the rendering effect shown you have to use a ray tracing algorithm. If the model is constructed using solid constructive geometry there will have to be one calculation for each pixel and one for each primative. (In CSG modeling the object is constructed from primative polygons) Each track link alone on that tank will have maybe 10 primatives and there are hundreds of track links, if we guess at 3000 primatives in total and four interesction each we have 36000*1024*800 calcuations. On a 1 GHz chips that will take 200 seconds or 3 minutes 20 seconds. It will be some time before you see grahix like that, you may get stuff that looks similar but it won't be as perfect as ray tracing, shadows are simply emphirically programed to appear.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rexford: 17 pounder AP knocking out Tigers at 1500m does not rule out shatter failures at other ranges, it indicates that at that range the shatter phenomena didn't occur cause penetration was outside shatter range. Guns at Medinine were opening up at 400 meters and getting one shot kills on German Tanks, I would never rule out shatter gap but, it seams that such things were very varible. Also I was under the impression that the 17pdr solid round was considerably less likely to shatter fail At close range 17 pounder could shatter fail against mantlet armor on Tiger I. Brits had wonderful 17 pounder ATG, Germans had 88L71 which was worlds better. Depends what you class as better, we have a 17pdr gun in the DLI museum it is pretty compact you could tow it with a light vehicle. The 88 on the other hand was a very much bigger weapon even in it pure AT gun guise. If you want to compare the guns only the 17pdr was a very much better gun, for its size it fired a shell with much greater power than that of any other nation. It imparts the same energy to its round as the German long 75. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rexford: There is a chance that 17 pounder hits on Tiger mantlet will shatter fail when they overpenetrate at most combat ranges. Hulldown, a Tiger has it all over a Firefly. "The supremacy of the anti-tank gun was proved at Robaa in January and at Sidi Nsir in February 1943; and in April and May of that year it was found that 17 pdr could knock out Tigers which were standinbg back at 1500 metres, expecting to engage British infantry unchallenged; but of all the anti-tank engagements in the Desert war the battle of Medinine on 6 March 1943 best illustrated the shift of power in favour of the well sited anti-tank gun." In practice the 17pdr had the abiltity to kill the tiger. "At Medinine the Army commander agreed to the deployment of 467 anti-tank guns and over 360 field and medium guns on a corps front. Anti-tank guns held their fire from defiles until targets were just 300-400 metres away" "a member of 10 Panzer Division, which had also served in Russia, reported that artillery fire at Medinine was "beyond all its previous experience".' Don't mention Firefly in same breath as Tiger. Blasphemy! How about Tigers in the same breath as Centurians. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> [ 06-14-2001: Message edited by: Dan Robertson ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Roksovkiy: This however was in theory as a report from the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Forces notes: WO 219/2801, SHAEF documents on tanks. AGp/1420/12/G(SD), dated 11 Mar 1946, " on the vulnerability of the King Tiger, the King Tiger's glacis is invulnerable to 17-pdr APDS. The front plate cannot be penetrated up to 0 yards, and the turret front at only 100 yards." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> WO 219/2801, SHAEF documents on tanks. Appendix A to 21 AGp/1420/12/G(SD), dated 11 Mar 1945, on the vulnerability of the King Tiger, states that the King Tiger's glacis is invulnerable to 17-pdr DS. It is stated that the nose can be penetrated up to 1,200 yards, and the turret front at 1,100 yards. For the performance of the 77mm gun, subtract 1,100 yards from the APCBC performance and 650 yards from the DS performance of the 17-pdr. To penetrate a King Tiger, 75mm M61 must strike the lower hull side at 750 yards or the turret side at 400 yards.

The 17pdr fired two main types of AP rounds APCBC and APDS. Firing APCBC it was roughtly equivilant to the much larger German 75mm L70 weapon. Lossing out slightly at short ranges but being superior at over 1200meters due to its heavier round. Firing APCBC it was significantly superior to the 88mm L56 flak gun, and the variation of that piece that is mounted in the Tiger. The 17pdr also fired the SVDS (now called APDS). This had penetration greater than the 88mm L71 firing APCBC rounds. CM over estimates vertical penetration of this weapon and under estimates slanted angle penetration. SVDS rounds were not particualry accurate as there was not the manufacturing tollerances to produce them in 1945. Those which flew staigth and hit were deadly accurate and tended to penetrate. Those which didn't work properly missed or broke up on angluar surfaces. The 88mm started with the flak gun, then this was adapted for use in the tiger tank. Later a much longer 88mm was developed, the L71. The Germans developed APCR rounds for all of their AT guns, however rarely fielded them. The 50mm gun did use APCR more regualry as its standard ammo was often ineffective. APCR rounds were also fielded for the 88mm as used by the Tiger they were reserved for heavy tanks like the IS2 at short ranges, over about 1500m they start to be out penetrated by conventional APCBC. The Tigers 88 firing APCR had considerably less penetration than the 17pdr SVDS round, it was barely superior to the APCBC of the 17pdr weapon especially at any range. The 88 L71 also had and APCR round, this out penetrates the 17pdr at ranges of less than about 1500m but is beaten by the 17pdr at longer ranges. However APCR was probably never used on this weapon operationally since it was pretty much unessisary as this weapon could knock out any allied AFV anyway.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kipanderson: Hi,In 1947 the British Board of Ordinance estimate of the armour penetration of the 122mm D25 gun was 179mm at 0 metres range and 168mm at 500 metres, against 30degree plate. Combat experience also showed that the D25 “could” penetrate the upper front hull of the Panther, certainly after May/June 44. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I take it we are both taking about WO 291/1143, "Effectiveness of British and Russian tanks." The only problem about this is that these figures were extrapolated from the penetration of the 17pdr. Which is generally thought to fire shells of a higher quality, in addition the 17pdr rounds were solid shot, which performs better than APC HE. The 17pdr round was also quite a bit longer, than the 122 in proportion to it diameter. In all not the best round to extrapolate from. The Wargamer.org site estimates that Russian figures should gain about 5% when compared to British figures. As for the Panthers Glacis test there were many tests done, the problems being that their results appear to be conflicting, in one (which is always quoted) the Panther Glacis totally failed from a 122 impact at 2500yards, in another the Panther Glacis resisted the 122mm 100mm and 88mm guns at closer ranges of about 700yards. I believe Lorrin Bird it the guy to talk to about these tests. Personally I would like to see their being a far greater variance in the rounds and armour, these test show that this does happen in practice, ocasional vehicles should have armour so flawed that it barely works. APDS is under modeled in the current game, subcaliber rounds do have terrible performance angainst slope as a whole but not quite as bad as the game makes out. APDS rounds that work properly should out perform the current figures for the game. Ones that don't should either miss or perform exeptionally badly. A similar variation in quality should also apply to the Russian ammo, as was the case in reallity

From the psots I have read on the forum I would guess that it is unlikely that there will be the option to fight your own side. My question is, what harm would this do? Surely it would not be that hard to allow both sides to have the same weapons, and if people don't want to play German verses German they don't have too.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Olle Petersson: Another possibly overused unit is Sherman(76)/Firefly when used in quantities of more than two per full (on map) Sherman platoon. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually some Regiments would create an all Firefly troop. To concentrate their heavy hitters into one group.

The last four on the left are the rounds of interest. The largest is the 88 L70, then the 88 L56 (tiger) then 75 L70 (Panther) 75 L48 as you can see they are very different sizes.

Checking my number so "don't read this"

On the Demo, I have usually found the 105 artilery will kill the pill boxes, if left for long enough. Usually a burst infront of the pillbox will kill it. Really a 14 inch shell should kill a pill box, I recently read about a cruiser knocking out some casemated guns above sword beach, 14 inch should do the job. Also their should be 15 inch shells from the RN battle ships and monitors that were off the Normandy coast.

This is historically accurate. Most AT guns, in their intended role, got off only one or two shots. The trick was to make these shots count, trading an At gun, for a tank is generally a pretty good trade off. The trick is to set the weapon up with a restricted LOS, and a good escape route. The line of fire should cover areas where you think the enemy are going to be compelled to go. Thus face one tank with one or more AT guns, the restricted line of sight means that when the gun opens up other units infantry or morters will not be able to intervean. The restriced LOS means that if the weapon is targeted by FO's the fire will take a few minutes to arrive, this gives you enought time to hitch the AT gun away to safety.

The ROK forces in Korea were lacking in weapon to fight in general, when the T34's rolled South they had problems stopping them. The US shipped M4 shermans, M26 and M46 tanks to Korea. Tank crews prefered the M4 as it was more relible and could climb the hill and paddie fields better. In actual combat all allied tanks post superior kill/loss ratios, compared to thee T34. American tanks were fighting suing much superior sights and the HVAP round they fired could easily penetrate the T34. The only other allied tank of note was the British Centurian which totally out classed any othe vehicle there gaining kills at over 3000meters.

I have had this happen quite frequently when playing Shermans against guns which barely over match their armour like a 75mm at medium range. This is fairley realistic, there are numerous case of penetrated tanks continuing fighting. There are many cases of rounds passing through vehicles,if the round doesn't hit anyone or any vital componets and doesn't explode there is a chance the vehicle will be unimpaired in combat. In the 1967 Isreali war I did hear of a Centurian recieving three penetrating hits at close range from a T62, These rounds passed through the turret and the Centurian knocked out the enemy vehicle and continue fighting

Tracked vehicles can stop very quickly much quicker than say a passenger car. I once was in a Warrior IFV when we pulled a rapid stop on a Gravel road, The vehicle stopped within it's own length, and tripped itself to an angle of about 20 degrees. (enough to make the ground in front of us vissible through the roof hatch. It didn't rip the ground up though, mainly since the vehicle weighs about 24 tonnes about the same as a PKW IV and has reasonable wide tracks.

There is a balance between development and production. The Germans were great at starting the development of new projects, but awful at finishing them or actually building any of them. On the other hand the allies once they had the ability to out produce the Germans began to cut back on some projects. For example, during the battle of Britain development was started on a beam-riding surface to air missile. However after the Battle of Britain there was now no need for such a device. Have the UK continued to developed this it would have been a very effective design well before the Germans ever could have built am effective anti aircraft missile. On the case of the SAM missile program, even by the end of the war the German had never really worked out how they were going to guide the missile. Proposals for visual guidance, audio fuses and even infra red guidance were floating around. In practice none of these were achievable. The British on the other hand had X-band microwave radar, so could effectively guide the missile close enough to the target to allow radar proximity fuse to explode. The German had neither what they had was excellent liquid fuelled rocket technology. Judging by the size and complexity of the Wasserfelt rocket I reckon even if they managed the impossible and actually got it to work, the allies could probably build more four engine heavy bombers than the Germans could build missiles. It is an often theorised point "what if the German could have got their latest weapons into production" the answer is that at best it would have lengthened the war and increased the German peoples suffering. Necessity is the mother of invention. The German technical advancements would have appeared in bits and if they had overwhelmed parts of the allied war machine they would have eventually been countered. In addition the allies had some pretty advanced weapons coming on line. The Americans sank a Japanese destroyer with a radar-guided bomb in the closing days of the war. The British were building a supersonic jet in the closing months of the war, the miles aircraft corporation built a jet capable of going at over 1000mph, it also featured the world first escape capsule Frank whittle developed the worlds first after burner to propel it. But a bureaucrat who had seen that German supersonic proposals had swept wings cancelled the program. The Americans copied the design and built the Bell X1, and broke the sound barrier. A few months later the miles aircraft flew to Mach 1.4 under radio control. The German superiority was greatest in the field of tanks, but one of the reasons the allies did not have to developed superior vehicles was because the inferior ones beat the German into surrender with in a year.

Ok working from the 75 L48 What I need to know. Velocity =790ms Mass =6.8kg diameter =75mm Constants/scale factors. c=4.25 n=1.45 (790^2*6.8)/ 75^3= 10.05 (10.05/4.25)^(1/1.45)= 1.81 = t/d t = 1.81 * 75 = 135mm at the muzzle. From Guns Verse armour. 75 L48 at 100m angle 30 degrees = 106mm correcting angle 106/ ((cos 30) ^ (2/1.45)) =129mm verse 135mm. Thats 6mm difference this can be explained away by either the fact the shell has traveled 100m or that penetrating armour is not that precise. Note that there is much more to take into account like scale factors due to the respective sizes of the shell and plate and also the quality of both plate and shell.

I don't know precisely how BTS are doing it but I can tell you how I would if I were them. First of all the probiblity of the round hitting is worked out, if it does the angle between the surface and the incoming round is calculated. then you could use the De Marre formula. which is (velocity ^2 * Mass * (cosine angle) ^(2/n))/ diameter ^3 = C(thickness of plate/diameter of shell)^n where n and C are constants. However for sub caliber rounds at high angles +30 degrees the n in the (2/n) part of the equation is reduced to 1.11, the represent s the tendancies of these round to break up at steep angles. This was a change that was added in the most recent patch as certain people had noticed the penetration of sub claiber rounds was too high at extream angles. Now to use the equation you will need a scientific calculator and the values for constants. CM uses the German 75 L48 as a base on which all rounds are standardised (I think). In which case the value for C is 4.25 approximatly. The value for in is around 1.4-1.5 the higher value the flatter the nose is. For APDS the values is 5.6 for C and 1.37 for N reducing to 1.11 for angles greater than 30 degrees. BTW this is only how I would do it and it can get alot more complicated as any one who has read Rexfords posts will know. There are some other factors smaller shells can be destroyed by larger plates that simply will not move out of the way even though the penetration should be greater than the plates thickness, this is the so called shatter gap. Also the t/d ratio can have an effect on this process. Rexford will be producing a book on the subject soon I think that will answer any possible quesions on the subject.

Ok armour values. Basically the armour of a tank is angled to deflect shots. To calulate the thickness of the armour you simply take a scientific calculator, (I can't remmeber if windows has one in it) divide the thickness of the armour by / cos (angle) so 88mm at 45 degrees= 124.4mm This is a reasonable estimate. However in practice against most guns tilting the armour back increases the resistance more because the force is no being applied over a greater area. In most cases a good estimate will be. thickness/ (cos (angle))^1.41 ^ means to the power, you will find it marked with an x with a smaller y above it on your calculator. so as before 88mm at 45 degrees = 143mm Some examples. Panther hull front 0.85 quality 85/ (cos 55)^1.41 * 0.85 = 158.2mm original question 95/ (cos40) ^1.41 = 138.33mm Basically your gun has a minimal chance of penetration unless the vehicle starts to come at you down hill. [This message has been edited by Dan Robertson (edited 01-31-2001).]