ModernTimes

Hmmm. I've had one individual - Hofbauer - question my "grip on reality" because I made the presumption that tank crews had an incentive to know the weaknesses of the enemy tanks and used this information (yes, in the heat of combat) in order to maximize effectiveness. (See above.) [Reply: I think Hof thought I meant that tank crews knew every nook and cranny of the opposition. They would simply need to know the strengths of major parts of a tank (Hull, turret...) Jeff H concocts a witty little satire on the outrageousness of a detailed manual of armored combat. (See above.) [Reply: Funny, but does not defeat the argument and strong possibility that tank commanders knew the general weaknesses of enemy armor. For example, the Panther tanks had heavier turret protection than hull protection.] The loudest reply seems to be that gunners aimed for a general "center of mass" and did not consider (or know?) the weaknesses of what they were shooting at. (b/c The battle field was a mess and too chaotic for such fine reasoning.) Unlike Hofbuaer and Jeff H, I am not a genius on these matters, so I will accept this reasoning until I can better familiarize myself with the specifics of WWII armored warfare. Thanks to those who suggested (or will)relevant texts on this subject. -MT p.s. "Back then the poor souls which had to man those tanks on both sides didn't enjoy that 20/20 hindsight we armchair warriors and wannabe-grogs of today have." Hofbuaer. Actually, Hof, I am quite certain those "poor souls" knew a hell of a lot more than you or I will ever know about armored combat during WWII...and I think that is my point.

Excellent replies and I can see both of your points; however, and it seems to me, either tank doctrine of the time had it wrong (i.e. fire at the center mass of the tank to improve probability of a hit) or CM does not model the benefits of a hull down position correctly. That is to say, IF there was a greater chance of knocking a tank out by taking AIMED shots at the turret, Army INTEL would have passed that along to the tankers and, if there were once previous advantages to not being H/D, those advantages would disappear under a new doctrine of fire. (e.g. Gunners would take aimed shoots at the turrets of enemy tanks out in the open and not the center of mass.) One major incentive for so optimizing a tank's effectiveness is the live's of the crew. I think that it is highly likely that tankers, whose very survival depended on how well they knew the enemy, would be very familiar with the opposition's tanks (unless "first time" scenarios like "Elsdorf") and what was NEC. to knock them out.

Getting back to the topic... Let's put away probability for a minute and consider logic. Let's assume that both enemy and allied tanks facing each other are identified, assume any distance, penetration and armor thickness and also assume that the angles of penetration are not a factor due to a tank being in a hull-down position. A tank gunner firing on a tank which is not hull down has the option of firing at the turret or the hull. If the opposing tank is hull-down, the choice is only the turret. If he knew that firing at the hull was not advantageous, he would ALWAYS (unless, possibly, a conscript with no training) fire at the turret. Thus, the kill probability upon both H/D and not H/D may - at best - be equal, but there cannot be an advantage in avoiding a hull-down position. Gunners would simply fire at the turret if there was a disadvantage in firing at any other part of the tank. (Others may say that hull-down should be better protected - and I agree - but my point is that a hull-down tank should never be at a disadvantage under the assumptions made above.) I am not sure whether or not this is a REAL problem as I have not seen the "Studies" and experiments, but if it is and relief of said problem is not a burden to the fine designers of CM, it would be nice to see a correction. Please respond if you have a question or a comment to my tedious post. Thanks.