Redwolf

BFC generally doesn't remove content from the forums. If we idiots would just stop bumping this thread it wouldn't be as visible...

According to CMx1 a 152mm Soviet WW2 round has armor penetration of 74mm at zero degrees. I think we can rule out that the top of the Abrams is that thick.

Well, we are now looking at two different issues: 1) outright killing a tank with direct hits (this page) 2) Pelican Pal's findings that near misses never cause subsystem damage other than tracks I find #2 much more interesting. Maybe there can be an engine 5 fix for it. PP has made an excellent argument and analysis.

The thing I take issue with is the strong side armor which makes the vehicle expensive and heavy. You don't need that to fight tanks. They wanted it for creating a "breakthrough tank" that isn't primarily fighting tanks. Dealing with T-34s and KV would be better served by upgunning a StuG with the 88mm L/56, but enclosed and with a good front shield. Basically a Brummbär with the "short" 88. And speaking of it, the Brummbär is a proper tool to facilitate breakthrough. Then take the research and resources that went into the Tiger and make a better medium tank chassis than the kind of awful Pz IV chassis sooner.

One big question is the Tiger family in general, or rather heavy tanks in general. Do you really need "breakthrough" tanks with as much side armor as other tanks have front armor and an oversized gun that has stronger HE and engages enemy armor at much longer range? Sure you take them if they are offered to you but the cost is substantial, do you still take them if you could have more medium tanks? And if mobility and fuel consumption is bad? The Germans thought so after Barbarossa, no doubt also influenced by the T-34 problems, but the concept of the breakthrough tank is based on heavy resistance in general, not one specific enemy tank model. So what do you do about stiff resistance? They didn't want to get bogged down. WW1 thinking also comes in. In hindsight this is misguided. More SP guns with large HE throwers to support regular attacks would have been the way to go. The whole Tiger family was not worth it.

Well, none at all sure sounds like a missing mechanism in the game. In CM we shouldn't sit in our tanks and be able to just ignore large caliber artillery. IIRC literally all "cold war hot" books (Zaloga, Peters etc) make that point that it is time for heavy forces too move when they come under heavy artillery fire.

Is there literally *no* damage to subsystems other than tracks or is it just rare?

The only thing I can think of is that you have multiple units selected and one or more lack the precision rounds.

The first two images up in this thread are obviously from AP shells. The other two show brittle armor so you can't really tell. And a Panther has less than half the side amor compared to a Tiger.

The (I)SU-152 only carries a few AP rounds. It is possible that they were depleted or that HE was used for other reasons. Penetration of the HE round is just less than the Tiger's side.

The SU-122 in CMRT does not carry AP. The late one has HEAT.

Another aspect is steel quality. In late war they did not have the metals for producing the required steel in the required quantities. This doesn't just make armor plates more prone to failure. It also means that high power engines and high-torque transmissions will fail at a greater rate. When they decided to make the heavier tanks with the 700 hp engines they did not know that yet.

The real chaos was not upgrading some of the bases for tank production. If they expected the way to last much longer it would have been worth upgrading all the factories with bigger cranes and whatnot so that they can do better than Pz IV and III chassis (for StuGs), to go to larger turret rings (for later upgradability) and the like. But in that case short-term concerns took over again.

They were expecting the war to last longer and to potentially end up in a situation again like they were when they fought T-34s with 37mm Pz IIIs. So they proactively upped their vehicles.

On discord somebody said that they fixed the errnous display of "wrong version". That indicates they can play now without being stuck. Overall it looks like almost nobody is using PBEM++.

Bridge bugs are a sport in CM, not a problem.

Hmmm, okay.

Well, the major thing missing from CM TRPs is the ability to create them on the fly. When FFE you should be able to register whatever you are firing at as a TRP to later return to. Like TacOps4 did.

What I mean is that the download links change when new all-in-one installers are published. That's why it doesn't make sense to copy them to a spreadsheet.

But you cannot put the download links alongside them.

Well, that leads to one specific problem. In CMRT you cannot control airplanes anymore. There is nothing you can do about it if they decide to shoot up the other setup zone in turn 1.

My understanding is that there is a software component to the tournament system (which is not in CMCW yet).

Well, there is useless info displayed in the list of orders which could be replaced with the product purchased, or at least the order number (then you can map from the email to the order line).

I also think that in a ME I should be able to blast the objectives with preplanned fire (not the enemy setup zones). If the enemy wants to rush the objective and run into 301mm Nebelwerfers on 5 minute delay more power to him.

My understanding is that the currently committed PBEM++ in CMCW is not sufficient for the tournament. Which is supposed to happen next month.