Treeburst155

IIRC, the 20mm/28 ATR did quite well against Stuarts in "FlakFront!" This one was not mounted on a 250/11. It bounced quite a few, but it seemed to kill the Stuarts as quickly as it will kill the M2 halftrack, maybe faster. I'd have to do some testing to verify this.

Spotters cannot get their LOS from HQs. They must have their own unobstructed LOS to the target.

Spotters cannot get their LOS from HQs. They must have their own unobstructed LOS to the target.

You could be right, Tar. I don't know what is right. I just know what is.

The 250/11 fires tungsten exclusively. However, I'd bet that the same test run at, say 500 meters, would yield the same number of harmless penetrations before putting the vehicle out of action. Penetrations which caused a crew casualty were fairly rare compared to outright "no serious damage" penetrations also. [ January 21, 2004, 01:52 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

I'm convinced now. No further testing required. You should figure on an average of 5-6 HITS on an M2 halftrack by the 20mm on a 250/11 at 180 meters to put the M2 out of action. In my latest round of 20 trials, 3 M2s survived the entire minute, having endured 8, 9, and 11 penetrations respectively. The record holder so far survived 12 penetrations before being knocked out by round 13. I've tested this 60 times now. The average number of harmless track hits, gun hits, and penetrations using Crack German crews at 180 meters was 4.1 per M2. Hits causing a casualty were NOT counted as a harmless hit. The vast majority of the harmless hits were hull penetrations with an occasional harmless gun or track hit. So, when you nail that M2 halftrack with 3 or 4 penetrating rounds from a 250/11, and the thing keeps on tickin', don't be surprised, cuz the M2 can take a good 20mm lickin'. [ January 21, 2004, 01:33 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

Here's an interesting figure from a test I ran. The 20mm on the 250/11 will average 3.7 HARMLESS penetrations of the M2 halftrack before firing the knockout round at 170 meters. This is when no fire is being returned by the M2 crews. The average is based on 20 test instances involving about 140 rounds fired in total. I think I need to run one of my exhaustive 500 count tests on this one.

Grog Dorosh, Why can't you just, "Hi Mom!" like everyone else? Hi Mom!!

I'd say the Cheery Waffle was effectively asphyxiated by the stench of The Mutha Beautiful. There can only be one MBT, and the Cheery Waffle was starting to look too much like IT. A shame really. The Waffle was entertaining at times, at least as much so as the MBT. I'd suggest payback is in order. All you Wafflers should overwhelm The Mutha Beautiful with posts. Assault them in their homeland, and don't let up. Hehe....it would be glorious!

I can no longer search by member number. It claims there is no member with that number.

This one is definitely on my list. I'll do it PBEM as soon as I finish a couple battles currently underway. I love these big fights! Thanks, WineCape!

....but if the Russian penetrations stats are 15% "unter" in CMBB, we would need a CMBB patch fixing this to appreciate CMBB in a new light, right?

I wouldn't characterize it as a "magical ability". The 88 just won't fully penetrate a Grant turret front all the time at 700+ meters. Partial penetrations are common too at that range. Looking at thickness and slope of the Grant turret front, this is understandable. It was just a bit surprising to see 88s not fully penetrating a fairly early Allied tank at moderate range.

Preliminary testing indicates that, at 760 meters, a front turret penetration of a hull down Grant by an 88 will occur just as often as a partial penetration. This means that all upper hull hits and half the turret hits by an 88 will kill the Grant quickly at 760 meters. The Grant won't survive too much longer than a Sherman against an 88 at that range. Now a different gun at some different range may show the Grant significantly more resistant to death than a Sherman. So, the in-game experience I had of seeing many turret front partial penetrations of 88 shells was just a little bad luck. Half those shells should have penetrated fully. [ January 15, 2004, 05:47 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

I'm not convinced that 25% of all hits from AT assets to the front, on a HULL DOWN tank, are on the upper hull. Are we sure it's not 25% of all hits on a tank which is fully exposed? If the 25% is true with hull down tanks, Grant survivability from the front while hull down should be quite a bit better than a Sherman. Perhaps I SHOULD run some tests.

Kozure, I didn't take offense or mean to offend you. In fact, the reason I posted my previous post was to acknowledge your taking the time to help me get a good test going. I appreciated the effort. The original assumption I made that the M3 would be virtually unkillable from the front when in a hull down position was proven to be wrong due to the upper hull exposure, which cannot be avoided. The turret front however, is still a very formidable piece of armor, as can be seen by the thickness and slope statistics. 88s will usually only manage a partial penetration at 700 meters. I've decided that this fact is merely interesting, and not worth testing because of the upper hull weakness. In other words, I don't see myself adopting different tactics due to the strong Grant turret. I only test things when I think the results will provide useful information for gameplay. The Grant will die frontally ALMOST as fast as anything else; but it will almost certainly be a hull hit that does it.

Wow, you Scenario Depot gents are on the job! Thanks!!

I like "boring" battles where the attacker is not under any serious time pressure. This is true whether I'm attacking or defending. In such battles, the defender's game is mostly in the setup phase. After that, it's all about seeing how his defense holds up against a human attacker. Fifty or more files may change hands before the first shot is fired. So what? The attacker is having fun because the ambush could come at any moment. The defender meanwhile, has to spend very little time processing PBEM turns, and can concentrate on the battles where HE is the attacker. So, splitting PBEM equally between attack and defense allows for more PBEM games at one time, while at the same time providing a daily dose of the fireworks. By designing scenarios such that the 10-15 minutes before contact is simulated, the attacker has many more options available and decisions to make. He can even probe a bit before making some of these decisions. To me CM is never boring, even after 15 turns of no contact when I'm on the defense. Why? I'm not spending any significant amount of time on that game. I'm just hitting Go and moving on to my attack scenarios. In the meantime, my opponent is having a good time smoking out possible ambushes, cautiously advancing, probing, doing a little recon by fire, etc..

Thanks for trying to be helpful here, Kozure. Let me say, though, I'm an old hand at running firing tests for CM. What I wanted to do today, but didn't get to, was to test hundreds of times using a range separated into 20 firing lanes. When this is done, the detailed armor hit messages come very fast. This makes it difficult to actually record how a particular vehicle died. Was it hit in the upper hull or the turret front, etc? The only way to see and record all the armor hit messages is to use only a small number of firing lanes. This makes running a large number of test instances very laborious. The statisticians around here will tell you that a test needs to be run several hundred times to get within +/- 5% of the truth.

Yes, other than making scenario reviewing as painless and quick as possible, I can think of no good way to actually get people to do reviews.

I think I'll spend some time today, throwing various AT rounds at a hull down Grant at various ranges, just for fun. I'd like to get a turret hit:upper hull hit ratio; but that might be difficult to do with a large number of tanks on a firing range.

It sounds like an old Cheech & Chong thing I remember from 30 years ago.

I think a 37mm gun that rotates 360 degrees and is killable only by AT assets more powerful than a 75mm/43 would be quite handy in many situations. The distraction value alone would be nice. In any case, the upper hull is the undoing of the UberGrant; but the test above does not show the Grant turret to be anything less than very tough.

Notice that all your turret hits are only PARTIAL penetrations. The only clean knockout you have there is the single upper hull penetration...and this is with the mighty 88! With lesser guns the Grant/Lee would be very tough indeed. That is, if the Achilles Heel upper hull could be put hull down. [ January 12, 2004, 11:09 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

PeterX, I don't think the temperature would affect penetration chances, just the chance to hit in the first place. Grants & Lees, I'm not sure which I'm up against.